Going Digital

I believe that it is safe to say that cell phones are one of the most versatile technologies out there. With the Galaxy 8 being Samsung’s new flagship phone, I was not expecting much. When I had the opportunity to talk with Sprint Representative, Devonte Johnson, he confirmed why I doubted the phone.

Johnson told me about the specs on the phone. To begin with, the most exciting features phone brought back to the Galaxy 8 is the wireless charging, new artificial intelligence, and the fancy new display. The new display is one of the main things that are talked about on the phone.

It has a higher resolution for better images and video watching experiences. This is nothing groundbreaking. Johnson agreed with me on this one.

I have a pet peeve when a technology releases something without it being finished. In this case, the new artificial intelligence that was supposed to compete against Cortana and Siri is still being worked on. Yes, the phone has BIXBY, the new AI, but it is not finished. Right now, BIXBY Home and Vision is working on the phone. But, the most important feature BIXBY voice is not currently working.

There is a reason for beta testing and Samsung just decided to release the phone with all is features. This is almost as disappointing as the game No Man’s Sky which promised its players multiplayer but only releases a single player mode then have the nerve to charge full price for the game.

Smaller computer towers have become more popular in the market. As consumers, we want small, stylish and quiet computers to show off to our friends. So, I have gathered 4 of the best microcomputers cases that are available if you are deciding to build a small computer.

Silverstone ML08 

The Silverstone ML08 is budget friendly cases out there for what it provides. What is impressive is that there two slots for GPU’s. A GPU is a graphic processing unit that allows graphic intensive games such as Crisis 3 to be played in the best quality. Of course, there is a port on the motherboard for one GPU. There is also a unique port on the case itself that can hold on. With good wire management, this case will be fantastic for a living room PC.

Dr. Zaber Sentry (Photo 2)

Besides having a name, you can find out of Star Wars; this small tower is impressive. This tower is a monster that was built in Poland according to Tech Radar. This tower is made of steel right down to the brackets and vertical stand. The special thing about this model is that it can provide the capability to hold up eight hard drives within the case.

Bitfenix Portal 

If you have played the popular game called Portal, you might recognize its design. IF you haven’t, there is a robot in the game called Gladus that looks like the tower. Besides its possible origin the case, this one of the most unique designs that I’ve seen in a micro tower. You can slide the motherboard from the back of the computer which allows for the easier transition of hard ware. So, if you want something fancy, you are looking at it.

Raven RVZ01-E 

For $85 you cannot go wrong with this case. This is a larger case in which trading volume for cooling. It comes with two fans so that the case will have enough intake for air. It also has two magnetic forms that you would put in front of the fan to reduce dust build up. For a micro tower, it is very impressive that it can hold full-size power supply and still have enough room for more wire management.

Just when you thought the netbook was banished from the laptop market, a tech company by the name of GPD brings it back as a performance laptop.

When the first Netbook was released; the entire purpose of it was to perform simple tasks such as surfing the internet and writing papers. The problem was that the processor was just slow.

GPD created the GPD Pocket which is a 7-inch laptop with a keyboard. It was a crowdfunding project, and it raised over 3 million dollars which were 1520% over the goal according to Indiegogo.

Mark Holiday is a technology enthusiast from Chicago and happens to get one of the first 100 units that were sent out.

“It is usable. The specs on this netbook is comparable to the MacBook Air and only for half the cost,” said Mark. “My only complaint I that my hands are too big for the keyboard.”

The netbook features a quad-core processor with 8 gigabytes of ram. It also has 128 gigabytes of flash storage. Depending on your preference you can have Windows 10 or the Ubuntu operating system. I would not recommend using Ubuntu unless you know how to use the command prompt.

Every so often I find myself walking in the electronic section in Walmart overhearing one of the employees misinforming the customer about 4k televisions. Let me shed some light on what 4k is.

A television screen or monitor is comprised of pixels. More pixels’ equal better quality. So, when you hear about 4k or Ultra High Definition (UHD) televisions think about the number of pixels. 4k equals 8,294,000 pixels which are four times the amount of what a 1080p can display.

With 4k televisions and monitors will show a crisper image. Do doesn’t want that, right? What matters is what kind of setting you are in. If you are sitting in your living room and watching television on your new 49-inch 4k tv, you probably will not notice much of a difference until you sit closer to the screen.

In my experience, I would sit closer to the 4k screens because of it much more immersive when playing games and watching movies. 4k monitors have become one of the technology’s faster-growing sector according to Tech Radar.

If this were a year ago, I would not recommend buying UHD televisions, and this is because there was no hardware to support it. Now I would completely recommend it because the new Xbox One S, PlayStation Pro, and the Chromecast Ultra support that number of pixels.

Video game companies are now creating games in UHD. As for your older games, the Xbox One S and PS4 Pro will upscale the image. It will not be as good as 4k, but you will be able to tell the difference.

The biggest problem with 4k right now is the amount of content that is available for it. Television companies are slowly switching to 4k resolution.

If your internet connection is strong enough, go ahead and stream with Netflix or Amazon Prime Video because they are the main two providers that have true 4k content such as the Luke Cage. Lastly, make sure you throw out our old HDMI cord because you will need HDMI 2.0 to support 4k.

For those of you who are not familiar with how heat sinks work; they are the component that keeps your computer’s processor from overheating. The CPU is the brains of your computer and it is constantly working to complete each of your commands. When it comes to video editing, drafting, and gaming; your CPU is going to reach temperatures over 150 degrees.

When this happens, your computer will tell the heatsink to increase productivity. Meaning, that the fan will increase in velocity to keep the CPU cool and make sure it does not hit dangerous temperatures. Think of it when you are accelerating your car and the engine gets louder as you continue to apply more pressure on the gas. The same applies to the heatsink.

Daniel Ruhl is an employee at Geek Squad in South Elgin, IL. Besides repairing computers, he builds powerful computers for his friends at a reduced price. When it comes to heat sinks, Ruhl recommends the brand Noctura. Noctua is a computer manufacturing company that is based out of Australia that primarily creates heatsinks and computer fans according to thinkcomputers.org.

Ruhl talked about that Noctua is simply one of the best heat sinks that are currently on the market. After conducting multiple tests with the Noctua NH-D9L, Ruhl was impressed on quiet it was compared to its competition.

“Noctua is basically having a liquid cooling system in your computer but better. It does not make any noise even when you are running a high demanding game like Crisis 3. Also, it does not require any maintenance after installation,” said Ruhl.

If you happen to have a desktop at home and annoyed by the amount of noise that your heatsink is producing, go take a look at Noctua's heatsinks for a solution.

Link to the Noctua NH-D9L - https://tinyurl.com/z97phbo http://www.thinkcomputers.org/tag/noctua/ Photo Credit: Daniel Ruhl

Over the last couple of years, AMD has been quietly making small improvements upon their FX-series processors but they have not been able to truly compare to the raw power that intel processors bring to the table.

AMD is a computer manufacturing company that focuses on creating CPUs. They are the main competitor against Intel. AMD reviled their new CPU series called Ryzen back in early August of 2016. At first, people doubted that it there was no way that it could compete against Intel’s Skylake series processors.

They Were Wrong.

On Feb. 28, AMD released the official benchmarks of Ryzen and it left Intel’s i7-6800k which is one of their fastest processor in the dust according to Forbes Magazine Online. Videocardz.com released a graph of benchmarks comparing the Ryzen 7 1700X to Intel’s i7-6800k and it beats Intel in most categories.

Intel Reduces Prices in Upon Ryzen’s Release

On Mar. 2, Intel reduced their prices on the processor to combat with Ryzen as seen on Microcenter and Amazon’s websites according to Forbes Magazine Online.  

Only time will tell if AMD’s Ryzen series will overthrow intel off their throne.

Ryzen 7 1700x - https://tinyurl.com/zoq9lrz Forbes Magazine - https://tinyurl.com/hh8hpde Photo Credit: Videocardz.com