Windows 10 Review

Photo by: blogs.windows.com

Windows 10 is a new operating system by Microsoft and it launched on July 29, 2015. I have downloaded and installed it on two laptops to get a sense of how it performs on different machines. First, I will explain how Windows 10 Pro operates on a high end laptop then I will compare it to my lower end laptop and finally end with my overall impressions of the OS.

Asus G75VW-BBK5 Testing:

The last few weeks of using Windows 10 have been nothing short of amazing. The operating system flies through daily tasks and is overall faster than Windows 8.1 Pro. I recently upgraded this gaming laptop with a solid state drive, SSD. The performance increases were immediately noticeable but with Windows 10 installed, I am thoroughly impressed. This Asus laptop boots in less than ten seconds and shuts down in the same amount of time. The installation process took only five minutes to complete and was almost instantly ready for me to use. The speed is very quick but with every software iteration there are bugs that need to be addressed, and sadly Windows 10 is not void of bugs.

The bugs I am referring to are not major in any sense. There are various annoyances I have come across while running my favorite programs. After upgrading to this OS, I noticed that Steam, a video game distribution store, and EA's Origin, another online store for PC games, had issues. Steam works as it should but the resolution is not matching my monitor anymore. Origin has a system error report stating that it "can't start because MSVCP100.dll is missing from your computer." Another bug that I have run into involved my touchpad. Asus does not have an updated version of the driver I used for my touchpad, so when I updated my OS my touchpad gestures stopped working. I was able to manually fix these issues by updating the driver.

My normal usage of this laptop has improved thanks to the speed improvements apparent with this new upgrade. Programs and applications launch faster, close faster, and act more stable. The inclusion of Cortana into Windows 10 helps bring computing on PCs as easy as it is on smartphones. I can say "Hey Cortana" and she will await my command. She is Microsoft's answer to the personal assistants that have become the norm on smartphones. Cortana will also do what Google Now has done well for years. It will aggregate news, weather, and information for you while also trying to assist you before you ask. The upgrade to Windows 10 was well worth the wait because it blends all the greatness of Windows 7 with the speed of Windows 8.

Asus Q200E Testing:

My thoughts about Windows 10 on my portable laptop differ only slightly than my views from my gaming laptop. On this laptop, Windows 10 makes it boot up a little slower than it did on Windows 8.1 Pro. Speed and responsiveness become a factor when comparing two laptops with two different storage configurations. This laptop contains a 500 GB 5400 RPM hard drive inside, where as, my G75 laptop has a 250 GB Samsung 850 Evo SSD inside. The internal components inside the Q200E are a few steps below the G75 but the only main difference I have observed is a slower boot up time.

Conclusion:

Windows 10 Pro is a fantastic improvement and a major step in the right direction for Microsoft. They decided to make the upgrade free for one year for customers who had Windows 7 and 8.1 previously. I recommend downloading the upgrade and trying it out. New features: Cortana, multitasking improvements, multi-desktop support, and a notification center all bring Windows up to speed and make it feel like a modern day experience. People have grown accustomed to these features on other platforms, and it is a nice addition to enjoy on these additions on Windows.

Score:

9.5/10

Google Photos Review

Google is on the leading edge of providing its customers with services people utilize on a daily basis. For me, Google's application called Google Photos is no exception. When the app launched on May 28, 2015 I was skeptical and did not immediately switch my photo gallery to it. It initially sounded too good to be true. Google promised customers that this application will allow users to upload an unlimited amount of pictures and videos, to Google servers for backup, for free. As long as the images were limited to 16MP and to 1080p video, it was not counted against the 15GBs Google allots users for free from the start. My skepticism was unnecessary.

Photo by: play.google.com

Features:

I decided to give it a try a few weeks after its launch. The interface is very simple and easy to use. It groups photos by date and if you sync your photos to Google's cloud, their servers intelligently group photos of similar faces and can instantly create animated GIFs. At first I did not sync my photos to the backup servers because I didn't think I would need to. The phone I tested Google Photos on was the Google Nexus 5. The phone contains only 16GB of internal storage with no SD card slot for expansion. The backup server allows for high quality uploads for free. This was an opportunity to free up precious storage on my phone. You can delete the phone's copy of the image but still see it in your gallery, and you can also view the photos on a computer. A recent update to the application, allows users to delete all photos on their phone with a single tap of "free up space." This feature will only delete photos that have been backed up already. The application will also work with the Google Chromecast so users can cast pictures from a cell phone to the television without using a wired connection.


Conclusion:

My experience with Google Photos was smooth and pain free. I connected to my WiFi and Google handled the rest. Once the application notified me that the backup was complete, I began deleting all of my videos. Google Photos is a great way to free up space on your cell phone, especially if the phone you use does not have an SD card slot or has limited storage out of the box.


Score:

10/10

Asus G75VW-BBK5 Laptop Review

Design:

The Asus G75VW Republic of Gamers line of laptops is phenomenal. I have used this laptop for two years now and I have only had one problem with it (mentioned in operation section). This laptop features a stealthy look with two rear vents for cooling that take after a fighter jet's afterburners. The included ports are: four USB 3.0, DVD drive, SD card reader, mic and headphone jacks, power port, VGA, HDMI, Ethernet, mini display, and a Kingston lock. It has a backlit keyboard using white light, and an easy access port for upgrading the laptop's hard drive and ram.  The laptop was designed with quality materials and is made up of plastic and metal. 

Photo by: asus.rog.com

Operation:

This laptop contains the Intel Core i7-3610QM, clocked at 2.3GHz with a turbo boost of 3.3GHz, 8 GB of ram, and a 1 TB (terabyte) hard drive. The best part of this laptop, and the feature that made it so expensive at the time of purchase, is the Nvidia GTX 660M graphics processor with 2 GB of dedicated memory. This laptop was $1,300 two years ago at Best Buy. The laptop quickly handles any program I want to run on it. The only part that is slowing down this machine is the 1 TB 5400 RPM hard drive. The RPM speed on this drive is the slowest drive available for consumer purchase. The only time this effects my daily use of this laptop is during start-up. It boots up very quickly, but the start-up programs make the hard drive suffer initially. This laptop has a webcam which is good enough for Skype calls, but it is only 2 megapixels. The keyboard and track pad are the best of any laptop I have used. The built in speakers are the only issue/problem I have with this laptop. The speakers are very tinny and do not get very loud, even with an included sub woofer.

Battery Life:

The other drawback of this laptop, besides the slow hard drive, is the battery life. This laptop was designed and built before Intel and Nvidia were trying to minimize battery consumption. I can get 1-2 hours of battery life out of this laptop. Two hours is achieved using the lowest brightness setting on the screen, and using the "Power saver" feature in Windows.

Software:

As the years have progressed, using this laptop has been progressively more enjoyable. New programs like Nvidia's GeForce Experience have released, which help people adjust their game settings for the optimal frame rates. This laptop originally came with Windows 7, but I upgraded it to Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit last year. The Windows 8.1 experience was not very enjoyable because this laptop does not have a touch screen. This year Microsoft released "Update 1" for Windows 8.1, and the experience has improved substantially. It makes Windows 8.1 operate closer to how Windows 7 worked because the Start button is back and users can switch between Modern applications and x32 applications with the task bar. The included Asus software can be helpful, but most of it can be uninstalled because Windows already contains some of the application's features. The drivers and software can be re downloaded from the Asus website.

Overall Thoughts:

The Asus G75WV-BBK5 gaming laptop was a great purchase for the price. Asus made sure to have a premium build quality and great internal specs for about half of cost of the competition. The laptop can run most games at full 1080p on Medium to High settings, and sometimes Ultra (it all depends on how demanding the game is). My only complaints about this machine are its slow hard drive, speakers, and battery life.

Score:

9/10

Asus Q200E Laptop Review

Photo by: notebookcheck.com

Design:

Not only is this laptop small, but it packs a punch.  This laptop was ~$400 and it looks like a MacBook. The materials are a mixture of plastic and metal. The ports include: a power port, Ethernet, HDMI, one USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0, Kingston lock, VGA, mic/headphone jack, and an SD card reader.

Operation:

This laptop contains an Intel Core i3-3217U processor, clocked at 1.8GHz, 4 GB of ram, and a 500 GB hard drive. This laptop is very powerful for the price point, but the reason it was a great deal was this laptop has a touch screen with "Full Windows Touch Support with 10 Touch Points". Having 500 GB of storage is great for a laptop of this size, but the hard drive is slow spinning at only 5400 RPM. At this price point, some performance has to be decreased. The Intel Core i3 chipset in this laptop can easily be overwhelmed with tasks for a power user. Since i3 processors do not have a turbo boost, the processor struggles to run more demanding software. The keyboard and track pad are easy to use, and work great. The included webcam is an added bonus, but it is only 2 megapixels which is only really adequate for Skype calls. The keyboard is not backlit on this laptop.

Battery Life:

With smaller computers comes amazing battery life...right? No. In this laptop, this is not the case. For some reason, this laptop can only last 2-4 hours tops. This all depends on the programs running and what the screen brightness is set to, but the battery life is very disappointing on this machine. Other laptops in this category get 5-8 hours of battery life.

Software:

Asus includes some helpful software in this laptop that allows the hardware to come to life. One application is called "Asus USB Charger Plus" which allows users to plug in their devices into the USB 3.0 port and charge their phone even when the system is on or in sleep mode. Windows 8.1 64-bit runs amazingly fast and responsive using the mouse and keyboard or the touch screen. The new "Update 1" for Windows 8.1 adds added functionality for mouse and keyboard users, if you choose to work Windows that way.

Overall Thoughts:

The Asus Q200E is a great package deal for the money. If people want a touch screen on a relatively powerful laptop, look no further. Other laptops, with touch screens, run close to $1,000 dollars when this was bought last year. It makes a great portable laptop that can run almost any application. The only downsides to this laptop are the battery life and hard drive speed.

Score:

8/10

LG L55C Smart Phone Review

Photo by: amazon.com

Design:

This smartphone has a minimalist design that many people find appealing. The phone caters to the right handed users because the power button is located at the upper left hand side of the phone. The volume controls are on the left side along with the micro USB charging port. The phone features a full QWERTY slide out keyboard. There is a dedicated camera button on the right side of the phone, allowing for quick photos and videos, when it works, but I will get to that feature in a bit.

Operation:

As mentioned before, this smart phone was designed with right handed operators in mind. Besides this, the phone performs as expected for a phone that runs Android 2.3. The specific version on this phone is 2.3.4 and it is laggyyy. Never use the stock web browser, it is terrible and crashes constantly. If the phone is not full, use Mozilla Firefox for a semi enjoyable experience. This phone was designed for a time when apps did not take up multiple megabytes or even gigabytes. The phone is severely limited in daily use by its lack of internal storage and ram. The phone is rocking 200 MB (megabytes) of internal storage and 350 MB (megabytes) or ram. In practical usage, I can only run one, maybe two, apps at the same time before the phone starts to lag to a skreetching hault.

Battery Life and Camera:

The battery life of this phone is one full day...with light to slightly moderate use. The 1540 mAh battery suffers under normal load. If the Facebook app is running in the background for too long, the battery suffers significantly. While actively using Facebook, from a full charge, the battery will drop rapidly.

The 3.2 megapixel camera/video camera is not good at all. It takes bare bones photos and terrible video quality. The shutter speed of the camera is slow, so do not expect to snap lots of pictures in a short amount of time.

Overall Thoughts:

The LG L55C was designed and built for a customer years ago. I bought this unit from the local Walmart on the Straight Talk Wireless plan. I pay $45 a month for unlimited talk, text, and 2.5 GB of data. The unfortunate part of this is, the phone is locked to the Sprint towers. In Wilmington, NC Sprint is the absolute worst in signal strength, signal reliability, and 3G speed. My favorite feature of this "smartphone" is the included keyboard, and it is sad to see them fading away in the smartphones of today. The phone works and has lasted me many years, but it lacks the usability and longevity of the smartphones of today.

Score:

5/10

PC vs. Mac

By: Nathan Johnson

     One of the most talked about, and most argued topic in technology is are you a PC or a Mac user. The topic of which operating system people use is one that is tied into one of our human responses. Whichever brand you choose to use is up to you, but for the operating system that is picked, a bond starts to develop. You get familiar with its ins and outs, and you know how to work the software to finish your present task. Once we start to use technology and figure out how it works, we become more attached to that hardware, software, and operating system.
     As a PC user since I was in middle school, I am very familiar with Windows software and how to move around the operating system. I can get my work done with little to no effort because I have used Windows for years. Whenever I sit down at a Mac and look at the OS X, I get lost. In most cases, the Mac task bar is on the bottom, as is the Windows task bar. The one difference that trips me up every time is the placement of the minimize, re-size, and close buttons. On Macs, they are on the top left corner, but on Windows machines they are located at the upper right corner.
     Another major difference for me, being a power user and an optimizer, is I cannot find the settings or system tools I need. On Windows I know how to get to all the system settings, such as Disk Defragment, Disk Cleanup, Program Uninstallers, etc. On Macs, I either cannot find them, or they just do not exist. I have helped dozens of my family members and close friends repair their Windows machines that had become slow and bogged down, but I can only do so much for my fellow Mac users.
     The advantages one operating system has for one person, are the weaknesses for the other. It is not that I dislike OS X, I just do not know how to work alongside of it.

Photo by: moguul

Beats Audio Headphones

By: Nathan Johnson
   
     Last month I went to Walmart with two of my closest friends and we wondered around the store and ended up in the isle dedicated to Beats by Dr. Dre. At first we put on the headphones. They are pretty comfortable, but then we tried the demo music we were stunned. The results were not as good as the price tag was suggesting. They range from $169.95 to $449.95. We could not believe our eyes or our ears. "Why are they so expensive?" we said in unison. There are better quality headphones on the market, so why do people buy Beats?
     Beats by Dr. Dre seem to have become a status symbol. If you have Beats, there are two different opinions that I usually hear, "oh man that guy bought Beats?!" or "wow what a rip off." There is the crowd of people who love Beats headphones, and another that despises them. I happen to fall more towards the opinion of, why buy Beats?
     I ask that question based on the demo. I listened to two different songs, on two different versions of the headphones. One of the headphones had absolutely no bass response to speak of, and the other one had decent bass. In comparison, my $99.99 Sony Gold Wireless Stereo Headset has better bass, treble, and mid range response. There is a pair of headphones that gets stunning reviews, but I have not hear much hype about, and they are the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 headphones. I have not personally tried them, but many YouTube personalities love them. I would recommend trying those out before buying Beats headphones because my $99 headset sounds better than they do.

Photo by: bfishadow