Brian Fagioli

One of the biggest knocks against solid state drives, is their capacities are typically much lower than those of mechanical hard drives at the same price points. With that said, this really only matters if you truly need a lot of local storage space. For some, performance is the most important aspect, especially thanks to the cloud.

These days, however, solid state drives are becoming more affordable and gaining higher capacities all the time. Today, Samsung unveils an affordable drive that doesn't compromise on speed or capacity. The "860 QVO," as it is called, uses 4-bit multi-level cell (MLC) NAND and starts at 1TB capacity. Yes, the base model is 1TB -- how crazy is that? You can also opt for 2TB or 4TB if you need. Speeds are exactly what you'd expect from a SATA drive -- slower than NVMe, of course, but more than fast enough for most people.

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This time of year in the United States is full of excess and commercialism. It starts with Thanksgiving -- a day that should be about giving thanks and spending time with family, which has morphed into overeating and watching football for many. The following day is Black Friday, where people spend huge amounts of money to buy things they probably don't need -- sometimes even fighting with fellow shoppers. Yesterday was Cyber Monday -- yet another holiday focused on buying things. Sigh.

Thankfully, there is one day that Americans can use to atone for their sins of greed and gluttony -- Giving Tuesday. Yes, the day after Cyber Monday is celebrated by donating to charities and being an overall better person. Today, Amazon announces that people can donate to Toys for Tots using its popular Alexa voice assistant. Not familiar with this charity? Well, the name is quite descriptive -- it is literally donating toys to needy children.

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If you are a fan of light and thin laptops, you are probably very satisfied with the current crop of notebooks on the market. Whether you want Windows 10, macOS, or Chrome OS, there are plenty of svelte machines from which to choose. It is quite remarkable to see how much power can be packed into such a slim body.

ASUS has a new addition to its VivoBook 14 series, and it looks very pretty. The "X420," as it is called, features a "frameless display." This is really jut marketing speak for extremely thin bezels. As you can see from the images, there actually is a frame. While the selling point is a misnomer, it is impressive nonetheless. The X420 is not form over function either -- the internal specs are respectable too.

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Holiday shopping is now in full effect. Black Friday may only be a memory at this point, but Cyber Monday is just a day away.

Here's the cool thing, though -- stores are not waiting until Monday to launch their special "Cyber" deals. For instance, Amazon -- the king of online retailers -- has tons of amazing deals live right now. Not only are there discounts on the company's own offerings, such as Fire TV and Echo, but on products from Netgear, Ecobee, and more. To make your shopping even easier, we have compiled the top "tech" related deals.

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Gaming is a big business these days, and some companies offer special branding for such products. For instance, Kingston's gaming offerings are typically sold under the HyperX brand. It is sort of similar to car companies that have luxury brands, like Ford to Lincoln, or Honda to Acura. It's the same company, but it signals that the product is a cut above its "normal" vehicles.

ADATA is yet another tech company that has a special brand for its gaming and enthusiast-grade products -- "XPG." This week, there are two new gaming accessories to fall under that umbrella -- the XPG INFAREX K10 keyboard and M20 mouse. Both products look well made and full of great features. And of course, they both have RGB lighting, because... gaming!

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When Apple abandoned the home networking business by discontinuing its popular AirPort routers, there was a huge void left behind. Sure, there are plenty of router manufacturers out there, but Apple's offerings were fast, stable, and super easy to set up and maintain. Also important was the AirPort designs -- they didn't look out of place in a living room or bedroom. There really wasn't much like them. Rest in Peace!

Seeing there was an opportunity in the market, popular company Ubiquiti Networks set its sights on the home with its AmpliFi HD mesh networking system. Not only did it match Apple's AirPort excellence, but it exceeded it with features like an LCD touch screen. Last month, Ubiquiti launched the AmpliFi Instant for shoppers on a budget, but today, it goes in the opposite direction -- the high end. Its newest product, the "AmpliFi HD Gamer's Edition," features NVIDIA GeForce NOW QoS which should provide lower latency when playing games like Fortnite and PUBG.

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Sticks of RAM on their own are fairly boring aesthetically. These days, however, manufacturers are dressing them up to look fancy thanks to colorful heatspreaders and RGB lighting. There's nothing wrong with that -- it is nice to have an attractive PC build.

Today, popular memory maker G.SKILL takes things to an entirely new level. Its new Trident Z Royal Series DDR4 RGB memory kits feature gold or silver heatspreaders with transparent "crystalline" for the RGB lighting to shine through. Some may call it tacky, and maybe it is, but I find the gold in particular to be drop-dead gorgeous. As the "Royal" in the name implies, these are RAM kits fit for a king (or queen)! Even the font used on the sticks looks wonderfully pretentious.

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If you are a fan of mechanical keyboards, you are probably in heaven these days. After all, there are many manufacturers producing quality products. Unfortunately, many of these models are designed for gaming, meaning they are ostentatious, with RGB lighting and funky teen-friendly style. They often have noisy keys, too -- great for the user, but annoying to those around them. If you want a more conservative mechanical keyboard, your options are a bit limited.

Today, Razer launches a very beautiful mechanical gaming keyboard that looks very sophisticated rather than childish. The "BlackWidow Lite," as it is called, has regular white back-lighting and forgoes a number pad, making it very compact. Best of all, Razer's own orange switches are silent, meaning you won't bother family or coworkers when gaming or typing. It is reasonably priced too.

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There are many Qi wireless chargers on the market these days. They have become very affordable, so if your phone supports the feature, you really should buy one. No longer will you need to fiddle with plugging a cable into your phone -- especially tedious when you are exhausted and just want to fall into bed.

Before you purchase a wireless charging pad, however, you should make sure you are getting one that is high-quality. I suggest looking for a reputable brand that does not have an integrated cable. Instead, you should target one with a removable cable -- preferably USB-C. The other thing to look at? Wattage. Not all pads are created equally, and depending on your phone, you may get faster charging speeds from a pad with higher watts. Today, Satechi launches a wireless charger that seemingly checks all the boxes.

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Stunningly, Microsoft lost the smartphone wars despite getting a huge head start with Windows Mobile, and going back even further, Windows CE. Despite having a stranglehold/monopoly on desktop computing, the company made too many missteps with mobile, and ultimately, has been forced to exit the very profitable business. Microsoft even took down Nokia in the process, destroying a once beloved company.

Following smartphones, the next big thing was voice assistants, and Microsoft was ready with Cortana. Unfortunately, unlike Apple and Google who had successful mobile operating systems to push their assistants, Microsoft was once again left trailing behind since consumers passed hard on Windows Phone. Online retailer Amazon came out of nowhere and dominated this field too. Ultimately, Cortana has become a thing that exists solely to annoy Windows 10 users. This is a shame, because Cortana is actually pretty good.

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Black Friday is one week away -- I hope you have some disposable income handy. If you need to buy Christmas gifts for friends and family, or you just want to treat yourself, shopping on Black Friday is a great way to save money. The discounts found on the day after Thanksgiving are often quite substantial.

Of course, over time, Black Friday has gone from being a single day to be being, well... whatever a store wants it to be. Hell, some retailers have such sales live right now. Sony is following suit with its PlayStation Store, as tomorrow, an enormous list of PS4 games and DLC will get massive discounts -- a Black Friday sale a week early!

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For many consumers, Windows 10 is total overkill. If most (or all) of your tasks are web-based, a Chromebook is probably a much better option. After all, the Linux-based Chrome OS is fast and stable, while also being extremely secure. Why bother with all the malware and lag of Windows if you don’t have to?

Today, a company called Sector 5 launches a new Chromebook model. Called "E3," it has an attractive design, decent specs, plenty of ports, and an affordable asking price. Best of all, it supports both Android apps and traditional Linux desktop programs too.

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As more and more people wake up to the fact that Windows 10 is a giant turd lately, computer users are exploring alternatives, such as Linux-based operating systems. First impressions can be everything, so when searching for a distribution, it is important that beginners aren't scared off by bewildering installers or ugly and confusing interfaces.

Linux "n00bs" often opt for Ubuntu, and while that is a good choice, there are far more pretty and intuitive options these days. One such operating system that I recommend often is deepin. Why? It is drop-dead gorgeous and easy to use. It is guaranteed to delight the user, and its intuitive interface will certainly impress. Today, the newest version of the excellent Linux distro, deepin 15.8, becomes available for download.

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About two years ago, Kingston launched the IronKey D300 USB Flash Drive. This drive was extremely impressive, as it featured FIPS 140-2 Level 3 256-bit AES-XTS hardware encryption.

Today, Kingston takes the drive to another level. The D300S, as it is called, is essentially the same exact drive, but now, it has a serial number and barcode on the body. This will make it easier for a company to manage the drives, saving both money and time. It is also getting a new software keyboard for safer decryption, hopefully protecting from hidden keyloggers.

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Look, I am sorry to speak so bluntly, but Windows 10 is a smelly turd. At one point I felt like it had a lot of potential, but over the years, I have seen its quality take a massive nosedive. Microsoft has committed brand suicide many times over its long lifetime, but this time, it feels different. Regardless of what Satya Nadella thinks about services and the cloud, Windows is still the company's crown jewel -- for the operating system to have fallen so far is a tragedy.

Why is Windows 10 garbage? Well, it still has a schizophrenic user interface with silly tiles and two settings menus (merge with Control Panel already!). Not to mention, it is a privacy nightmare with its abusive telemetry. Even if you can deal with those aforementioned shortcomings, it has since gotten much worse with the October 2018 Update -- it began deleting user files and losing the ability to associate file types with certain apps. Its much-maligned activation scheme has been failing too. Yes, in 2018, what should be a mature operating system can't even do the basics. Sigh.

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