Category Archives: Best Hardware

The era of the single-function device is over. Today, it’s all about versatility — including the option of operating without a connection to a PC. A quartet of new products include some novel — and unexpected — capabilities for home and office use.

Whether you’re facing that mass file migration from an old PC to a new one, or you just want to move selected files from one digital device to another — or to the Cloud — new USB and wireless devices make this task as simple as dragging and dropping.

A quartet of devices makes it quick and easy to move documents, photos, music, and other data among PCs, Macs, tablets, and smartphones via USB, Wi-Fi — or both.

Just about everything attached to your computer needs electricity. Unfortunately, they use power all the time — even when they don’t need it. But there is a solution — a better type of surge protector that can put cash back into your pocket and help the planet, too.

Sure, Windows PCs can do a lot on their own, but add one of the new smart peripherals and their functionality can expand way beyond your desktop. I took a trio of such versatile products for test drives and found that each can extend your productivity and indulge your leisure-time wishes.

It’s a sad fact of computing life that we obsess over upgrading to the latest smartphone or laptop while allowing key supporting hardware to languish until it’s dead or obsolete.

Your network, for example, is only as good as its weakest link. Save time and money with these often-overlooked yet relatively easy upgrades for home or small-office networks.

The OCZ RevoDrive X2 isn’t your grandmother’s hard drive — or even your mother’s. This high-performance storage uses a PCI Express slot with x4 bandwidth mode for extreme speeds in both write and read.

OCZ sent over a 240 GB model that can read at up to 740 MB per second, write up to 720 MBps, and perform up to 120,000 I/Os per second (IOps) — astounding numbers, especially compared to mechanical drives.

Small businesses tend to skate by the Wi-Fi security front; turning on encryption and changing the router password is about as far as many SMBs go.

But with sensitive customer and business data at stake, can you really afford not to take Wi-Fi security seriously? The answers are cheaper and easier than you think.

Tablets, smart phones, connected TV apps — this year’s Consumer Electronics Show was replete with the latest fad products.

But there were also many electronic gems with some staying power. I found a bunch — including the best way to send video from your laptop to your TV, alternatives to the fading Windows Home Server platform, and routers with muscle.

Upgrading to the latest hot, new technology has always included an element of risk.

But combining a trio of cutting-edge gadgets — Blu-ray, a USB 3.0 hard drive, and a streaming-media box — can transform your PC into the ultimate Windows Media Center machine, painlessly.