In good lighting conditions, results from the Note 3’s camera are fantastic, with solid color reproduction, accurate white balance and reasonably good dynamic range. Looking at full-resolution crops reveal images are quite sharp, if slightly over-processed, and usually without grain. The f/2.2 lens can focus close enough that macro-style images are possible, however bokeh is merely average, so don’t expect amazing results. Where conditions become less ideal (indoors, cloudy days, artificial lighting), the Note 3 is still a reasonable performer....

In an era when annual product refreshes are to be expected, probably one of the hardest things for any tech company to do is generate excitement for its latest round. Inevitably, there’s discussion about the more incremental changes that happen from year to year instead of big explosive additions in capabilities, technology, and usability. On many levels, you could certainly make those arguments for Samsung’s latest refresh of its Galaxy S series phones and Tab series tablets....

As we saw in CrystalDiskMark the Samsung SSD 850 Evo is able to max out the SATA 6Gb/s interface when measuring sequential read performance. The Samsung SSD 850 Evo like many modern SSDs is able to reach the maximum throughput of the SATA III bus when writing sequential data. The 4K-64 thread test shows massive performance gains been offered by the Samsung SSD 850 Evo over its predecessor. The 90% increase in read performance is welcomed here as it means the 850 Evo is on par with the 850 Pro....

The 950 Pro series promised a massive sequential write speed and well here it is, 2339MB/s makes it 40% faster than the SM951 and over 50% faster than the Intel SSD 750 Series. The 950 Pro also delivered impressive sequential write performance, though it did fall short of the projected 1.5GB/s target making it slightly slower than the SM951. That said it was still much faster than the 750 Series or any other SSD for that matter....

Despite the off performance in our game and program copy tests the Samsung SSD 950 Pro 512GB gets the game installation test done in record time. Taking just 67 seconds the 950 Pro was worlds faster than the SM951 and Intel SSD 750. The 950 Pro was also very strong in our virus scan test taking just 33 seconds, which is the best result we have been able to achieve....

That transition will inevitably encourage an entirely new breed of SSDs as companies compete for your hard-earned cash, but until then, SSDs will become cheaper and more reliable through improved manufacturing processes. A recent example would be the OCZ Vertex 450 which offers Vector-like speeds at a discount, while today’s review unit from SanDisk shares similar attributes in terms of delivering affordable performance. We have not reviewed any SanDisk SSDs in the past as they’ve mostly been OEM products....

In terms of dimensions, this is a large graphics card measuring 310mm long, stretching 17% longer than the AMD reference model. It also stands 134mm tall and 55mm wide, making it 12% taller and wider than the reference model, so it will take up three expansion slots. The RX 6800 XT Nitro+ is rather large however it only weighs in at 1230 grams, surprisingly light for the size considering the reference card weighs in at 1510 grams....

“There are in fact no ‘ranks’ amongst Wikipedia admins. There was also no reference to Saudis acting under the influence of the Saudi government in our investigation. We do not know where these volunteers actually reside.” The foundation’s statement did not make any reference to the jail terms reported by DAWN and SMEX. The original story follows below: Saudi Arabia has reportedly jailed two senior Wikipedia administrators for a total of four decades after infiltrating the website’s senior ranks in the region in an attempt to gain control of the online encyclopedia’s content....

Although there’s no shortage of sleek chassis these days, we feel the FT03’s unusual shape sets it apart from the crowd. From the front the FT03 looks as though it could be a massive full-tower computer case, measuring 19.17" tall and 9.25" wide. However, its side profile reveals a depth of just 11.18" and weight of only 14.7lbs. The FT03 is available in either silver or black and you really can’t go wrong with either color, in our opinion....

The Silverstone Fortress FT03 amazed us with its thermal performance when at idle. Despite housing the hard drives behind the motherboard tray where appears to be very little airflow, the Fortress FT03 produced the best idle results with our Western Digital drives. The graphics card performance was also excellent keeping the Radeon HD 6870 at just 34 degrees while the CPU idled at just 24 degrees. Compared to the Lian-Li Mini Q PC-V354, the Fortress FT03 kept the GPU 10 degrees cooler and the CPU one degree cooler....

Normally, we also install half a dozen WD Scorpio Blue 500GB hard drives, and OCZ’s ZX 1000w power supply. There are two problems with that configuration in the Silverstone Fortress FT05: it supports only two 3.5" drives and with OCZ’s ZX 1000w PSU the enclosure’s 3.5" drive cage has to be removed. Therefore, we installed a shorter power supply and went with just two WD Scorpio Blue 500GB 3.5" hard drives....

Representing HTC’s first 4G LTE phone, the Thunderbolt sports a large 4.3-inch touchscreen, an 8MP camera with HD video capture, video calling via front-facing camera, Android 2.2 with HTC’s Sense software, and a 1GHz processor. Other features include mobile Wi-Fi hotspot, DLNA wireless media streaming, a kickstand for media viewing, FM radio, and 8GB of internal memory alongside the included 32GB microSD card. Indeed the HTC Thunderbolt is shaping up to be quite a beast and if the latest rumors are true you’ll be able to get it this month from Verizon....

The claimed throughput specs are roughly the same as the OCZ Vertex series, at least for the 128GB and 256GB versions anyway. Therefore it comes as little surprise to find that the A-Data S592 makes use of the Indilinx (IDX110) Barefoot SSD controller with the standard 64MB cache. Just like the Vertex, the S592 uses the same Samsung K9HCG08U1M-PCB0 memory chips. The major difference between the A-Data S592 128GB and the OCZ Vertex, Vertex Turbo and even the Agility is in their firmware....

Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan said he wanted to be clear with the community that Bungie will remain an independent and multi-platform studio and publisher. Bungie was founded in 1991 and acquired by Microsoft in 2000, reportedly just days before Apple was going to acquire the studio, and repositioned Halo: Combat Evolved as a launch title for the Xbox. Bungie separated from Microsoft in 2007, but Microsoft retained the rights to the Halo franchise....

In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, Sony said it expects Microsoft to ensure Activision games are multiplatform, as per contractual agreements. The record-breaking acquisition by Sony’s chief rival in the console space already lopped $20 billion off Sony’s valuation due to fears of PlayStation losing the Call of Duty franchise. Since Microsoft bought Minecraft in 2014 for $2.5 billion, it has maintained the versions for PlayStation, Nintendo, and Apple platforms that had already been released....

The good news is that the standby time is impressive, because the screen isn’t powered on. The bad news is that the screen on time is mediocre, because, of course, the screen is sucking a significant portion of the juice available. This means that in regular usage, you’ll likely find the Z Ultra barely lasting an entire day, and you’ll probably have to monitor the battery life closely to ensure you don’t need to scramble to find a charger....

The Snapdragon 801 is especially important to battery life as it’s one of Qualcomm’s most power efficient chips to date. Standby battery life is extremely good from the Xperia Z2 Tablet, as the Snapdragon 801 SoC power gates cores and runs at low frequencies to conserve energy. Every time I picked up the tablet, the remaining battery had hardly decreased, which is great to see. Battery life isn’t as impressive when you’re actually using the tablet....

The number of premium (paying) Spotify subscribers reached 188 million at the end of the second quarter. That’s up from 182 million in the first quarter and 14% year-over-year. Meanwhile, monthly active users (MAUs) hit 433 million, up from 422 million in Q1 and 19% YoY. Both figures exceeded the company’s own forecasts. The increased number of users marks Spotify’s largest ever second-quarter growth, something it puts down to factors including reactivations in Europe and “Gen Z strength” in Latin America....

Analyst firm TrendForce writes that its latest investigation shows the NAND flash market failed to experience its usual peak-season surge in demand. The lack of demand has led to an excess of factory inventory that’s reached “breaking point,” and manufacturers are bottoming out pricing in order to make a deal. TrendForce has now revised its NAND flash wafer contract prices from the original decline of 15-20% to a drop of 30-35% for the third quarter....