First of all I would like to thank Connects, for sending out the Lumia 930 out to me for a month trial of the phone.
After having reviewed the Lumia 1020, I was looking forward to the 930’s capabilities on Windows Phone 8 and more so the updated Windows Phone 8.1, that brings a few nifty features to the phone’s functionality.
The Lumia 930 can be bought from Nokia directly or via Amazon UK (and other sources around the world) for around £380 & AmazonUSA.
Camera:
Primary camera sensor size: 20 MP, PureView
Camera Flash Type: Dual LED flash
Sensor size: 1/2.5 inch
Main camera f-number/aperture: f/2.4
Camera focal length: 26 mm
Camera minimum focus range: 10 cm
Camera image formats: JPEG/Exif
First of all I would like to thank BitFenix for sending these out to me for review!
I was looking forward to see what BitFenix could offer me for review and despite being slightly disheartened to be receiving a £30 case, reflecting back, I couldn’t be happier – hopefully this review will convey my thoughts on what seems like a cheap PC case, but in fact turns out to be an extremely versatile and well-performing PC case!
Before getting into it – see my video review and full build video, which showcases me disassembling my mother’s old PC, the Fractal Core 1000 (which comes in at the same price bracket) and then transferring the parts to the new BitFenix Neos (Windowed, black and silver version):
This is going to be a very short “review” of Windows 10 Technical Preview and it’s performance on The Battlefield – Pun intended. I had previously benched BF4 to a huge extent and thought to conduct the same type of benchmark for Windows 10 Technical preview, whilst re-doping my Windows 7 benches.
I found the difference between the results to be extremely minimal, so much so that, the differences can be deemed inconclusive and insufficient to draw up ANY differences between the OSs.
Take away what you will, but those differences for me, normally would be over 5-10% in variance. In this case, they’re so close together that there’s absolutely no point in benching any more right now.
Now, should you be worried or dissappointed?
Absolutely not – these benches really prove to us, rather than anything else, that DX12 isn’t being used, drivers from GPU vendors (in my case Nvidia) aren’t released yet and furthermore these benches were comparing a stable OS with a Technical Preview.
overall, there’s a lot against Win10 really, but yet it performed extremely well for a “BETA”.
playing in REAL MP games, I noticed no stuttering or any problems playing on either OS.
To conclude this, I shall share my hardware specs and also my testing methodology:
CPU: De-lidded I7 3770k @ 4.5ghz
GPU: SLI GTX 680 @ 1111mhz core clock
RAM: 16GB 1600mhz CL9 Corsair Vengeance
MB: Asus Sabertooth Z77
PSU: Corsair AX750
CPU cooler: Antec H20 920
Monitor: QNIX QX2710 1440p @ 96hz
As you can read from the above, the only difference was the location of the install for Windows. I can guarantee you that there’s absolutely no difference in FPS between the choice of Hard/Solid State Drive used – only loading times were different.
I should also mention in these tests that:
-Shadowplay was disabled (in order to prevent any Win10 conflicts)
-Both are running 64bit
-Both are running the same driver: 344.11
-Both set of tests were done within 30minutes of each other and both on cold boots.
-I went to the exact same server, which was a 64MP map, with 0/64 players inside, on Siege of Shanghai
Via the video below, you’ll be able to see my methodology:
I was very much intrigued when AKG released their latest headphones, the Y50 range. This for me was an interesting leap into portability by AKG – often you see audiophile brands such as AKG, sky away from these types of models, as they tend to be cheaper and therefore have quite shoddy sound quality.
I was thus looking forward to reviewing the Y50 and hoping this wasn’t the case with this particular line – I was also intrigued to see how it fairs against its more expensive brothers the AKG K551’s and the AKG K545’s which I’ve previously reviewed. The AKG Y50s can be bought for around £80 on AmazonUK & AmazonUSA for $100.
First of all I would like to thank SteelSeries for sending me their headset for review. After having received the Siberia V2, 9H and H Wireless, I was interested in knowing where the Elite would fit into the equation. The Elite, should sit between the 9H and H Wireless price bracket – however after checking, whilst writing this review in late September 2014, it seems that the 9H is actually more expensive than the Elite – which surprised me. This therefore brought me a lot of interest as I would be interested to know how the Elite would fair, at a cheaper price but yet supposedly better on paper than the 9H.
The headset can be bought for around £115 on AmazonUK & AmazonUSA for $200.
On another note, when I first laid my eyes on the Elite, it reminded me of my old favourite headphone, the Sony MDR-XB700s – those Sony headphones were essentially bass driven pillows. Amazing to my ears several years ago – where I used to be a bigger basshead than I am now.
For more information about the headset and its specifications can be found on SteelSeries’ website.
