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Posts Tagged ‘monitor’

The long anticipated D800 from Nikon has arrived, and while it’s not quite a D4 in a D700 body like many were hoping for, it does sport a humongous 36.3-megapixel full-frame (FX) sensor (15.4 megapixels in DX format). Nikon says it’s the world’s highest effective pixel count among interchangeable lens DSLR cameras equipped with image sensors conforming to the 35-mm film size, and we won’t argue the claim.

Low-light photographers will want to temper their enthusiasm. Nikon limited the standard ISO range from 100-6,400 with additional support for equivalents of ISO 50-25,600 in Hi2 extended mode, enough to the job … [Read More...]

It’s more a work of art than a PC

You can’t truly appreciate the paint job on Falcon Northwest’s Mach V unless you can fondle it. We mean it—you just can’t comprehend how damn smooth the paint is without lovingly stroking your hand on the side of this beauty as if you were a presidential candidate.

Inside the Mach V, you’ll find a pedigree of hardware to match its stunning exterior. Intel’s top gun—the 3.3GHz Core i7-3960X—gets top billing, of course. This hexa-core chip simply makes all other chips before it—quad- or hexa-core—seem downright weak. Falcon mates the chip with … [Read More...]

A deluxe board with an enthusiast price tag

Let’s be frank: If you’re even thinking about buying into Intel’s deliciously fast LGA2011 platform this early, you are an enthusiast—Enthusiast with a capital-freaking-E, since you can’t even look at LGA2011 without buying a $550 chip.

So if you’re jumping in, you might as well use both feet. Asus’s P9X79 Deluxe certainly fits that bill, delivering cool features and a stout price tag: This X79-based board will set you back a cool $400.

“Deluxe” features on board include digital VRMs, Asus’s trademark UEFI, and built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, with a bundled smartphone … [Read More...]

Whether you just built or bought a new PC, it pays to optimize your setup from the start

Nothing holds more promise than a brand-new PC. The hardware is fresh and full of potential, the OS is clean and clutter-free, and you have nothing but pure, unadulterated storage space awaiting your precious data. It’s an exciting time, indeed. But before you start dumping old files onto your new rig willy-nilly, and downloading every shiny bauble of an app that catches your eye, take some time to consider a more measured approach to moving in. After all, you only have this … [Read More...]

Despite Microsoft’s apparent lack of love for Windows Home Server 2011—the company stripped Drive Extender from the final version, and good luck finding a retail Windows Home Server 2011 box in the U.S.—it’s still a great server OS for a Windows-heavy home environment. Backups are effortless, streaming is hassle-free, it’s easy to administer, and there are tons of add-ins available.

Given a choice between buying an off-the-shelf product and building one myself, I’ll opt for the build any day. And since you can’t get a retail WHS box in the U.S. anyway, I figured what the heck. I pinged Michael … [Read More...]

After watching Captain Picard solving all those Victorian murder mysteries on the Enterprise’s holodeck, we have to say that staring at a basic, flat-panel monitor is sooooo 20th century. Wasn’t the future of television watching supposed to be way cooler than this by now? Yeah, it was, but don’t worry; those spiffy high-tech displays have only been delayed, not scrapped entirely. A veritable army of hard-working engineers have been laboring day and night to bring flexible phones, holograms you can feel, physical 3D interfaces, and touchscreen, well, everything to your living room, car and workplace sometime soon.  And hey, we’ve … [Read More...]

At long last, a router to get excited about

It’s easy to become jaded when you review as much cutting-edge hardware as we do. We try not to be curmudgeons, but we do get grumpy when next-gen hardware fails to make a leap in performance—or worse, when it falls behind the gear it’s intended to supplant. So we’re happy to report that benchmarking Netgear’s new WNDR4500 left us grinning from ear to ear. This is the fastest router we’ve ever tested, and it’s packed with new features.

Netgear continues to brand its wireless routers with two different model numbers. The … [Read More...]

It’s easy to build a gaming machine on a budget if you’re playing at 1650×1080 or 1920×1200, but if you’re rocking 2560×1600, you need a little more oomph

As Maximum PC senior editor Gordon Mah Ung puts it, building a budget gaming rig for a 30-inch panel is the metaphorical equivalent of slapping a Ferrari engine into a crappy Ford car. If you can afford a display that rings up north of $2,000, then why the heck are you trying to cut corners on the system you’re connecting it to?

I can’t answer that one for you. But what I … [Read More...]

What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

We’ve never been big fans of headphones that use active noise cancellation, chiefly because they mask the sound of aircraft engines, HVAC systems, computers, and other sources of ambient noise by generating noise of their own. A far better strategy, in our opinion, is to sufficiently isolate your ears so those sounds don’t reach your eardrums in the first place.

The best way to do that is to plug your ears with miniature headphones fit inside your ear canal. But some folks just aren’t comfortable sticking bits of foam rubber or silicone in their ears, which … [Read More...]

NEC just expanded its MultiSync P Series with a new 24-inch display built for monitor snobs who wouldn’t consider touching a Twisted Nematic (TN) panel with a 40-foot pole. The MultiSynic P241W (or P241W-BK-SV if shelling out for the SpectraView II version) sports an e-IPS panel NEC claims is ideal for Web graphics and photography chores.

In case you’re wondering, e-IPS is one of the newer breeds of In-Plane Switching panels and is considered a sub-category of H-IPS. By using a simplified subpixel structure and wider aperture for light transmission, e-IPS panels can get away with a lower quality (and … [Read More...]

This super-thin display also has a super-thin price

AOC’s e2243Fw made a strong first impression on us: A glossy, piano-black frame houses this remarkably thin, 21.5-inch LCD monitor. In addition to being only 1/2-inch from front to back, it’s also extremely lightweight and flexible—and has a budget price, too. The entry-level price of $150 gets you TN technology and a WLED-backlit screen with a standard 16:9 aspect ratio and 1920×1080 resolution. It doesn’t, however, get you HDMI or DisplayPort.

The six?pound display has a round base holding sensors that, when touched, activate an onscreen display—a neat trick if it weren’t … [Read More...]

As an artist, I’ve always wanted some sort of one-to-one input when working in Photoshop or zBrush. I’ve used several of the traditional input tablets, but I’ve never been fully satisfied. I still ended up drawing on paper and scanning the results. It’s just more natural.

Input tablets have been constantly improving in the decades they’ve been around. But the technology remains imperfect. The pressure-sensitive pad sits on the desk, separate from the screen, which takes away some of that natural feel you get from drawing with a pen, especially when trying to add tiny details to your work.

So … [Read More...]

Anyone can buy a PC.  Most of you astute Maximum PC readers can build a PC.  And an elite cadre of you can even build a tricked-out PC with lights, and tubes of fluid flying everywhere, and a beautiful side panel that shows off your system’s tricked-out insides.

But the last thing that you’ll want to see through your pretty plexiglass is a PC that’s covered in dust.  In fact, you don’t want to have a dirty PC regardless of your level of desktop sophistication: It can lead to system overheating, it’s gross, and it only gets worse the longer … [Read More...]

Apple and Microsoft have been at each other’s throats in the computer realm for years now, culminating in those super annoying “I’m a Mac” commercials. Now comes word of Apple’s newest ploy; the company will recycle your PC for free. Heck, it’ll even pay for the shipping and packaging and give you an Apple gift card if the computer’s still worth anything. Are they being generous and environmentally conscious, or do Steve Jobs and Justin Long just plan on high-fiving and laughing maniacally while bulldozing giant stacks of Dells?

We’re not sure, but one thing is for certain; it’s a … [Read More...]

Of the many new features introduced in Windows 7, the humble Problem Steps Recorder was one of the least talked-about. At first glance, the application—which combines an automatic screenshot utility and a sort of low-grade keylogger—appears to be nothing more than a tool to make life a little easier for Microsoft’s legion of support personnel. Upon closer inspection, there’s actually much more to the Problem Steps Recorder.

For one, you don’t have to be a Microsoft support rep to view the files created by the Problem Steps Recorder, which means that if your clueless friend insists that his PC doesn’t … [Read More...]

Using Prey, you’ll have the upper hand over thieves

A laptop is a lot of things—it’s a mobile entertainment center, a portal to the web, and a way to get work done away from home. More than anything, though, it’s a freakin’-expensive piece of hardware that you absolutely do not want to lose.

Of course, the best way to keep your laptop is to not get it stolen in the first place. But if you do, you can be prepared to try and track it down. Plenty of companies are more than happy to charge you a recurring fee for … [Read More...]