It’s very seldom that virtual surround gaming headset gets such high approval but the Corsair Vengeance 1500 Gaming Headset proved to be a real head-turner. This latest gaming-centric but still multipurpose headset has garnered high marks for sound quality and compatibility. Almost every physical feature of it has been upgraded. The padded ear cups fit better and are more comfortable than previous models and do an excellent job of sound isolation without actually requiring noise canceling features. The cable has a nylon mesh wrapping for tangle free flexibility but warns against unwanted feline affinity.

The 5.1 and 7.1 audio driver flexibility seems to be the key feature of this headset allowing for compatibility for many old and new games alike. The 1500 provides game changing environmental awareness for games but movies and music are similarly enhanced. They appear to be very evenly balanced without favoring treble or bass. The reviewer actually seemed to struggle to find flaws with the Vengeance. In fact, the only complaints seemed to be around some of the nuances of microphone performance. Gamers that use the microphone for in-game communication are rarely concerned with music hall performance so that should be a non-issue for most. See the entire review at Everything USB for more details on this new prodigy from Corsair.

[Corsair Vengeance 1500 Gaming Headset Review @ Everything USB]

By David Ponce

The Shure SE215 earphones are not exactly a new product, but we were recently sent a pair for testing and would like to take a short bit of time to give our impressions for anyone considering them.

Shure is known for their quality products and some of their earphones can fetch up to $500+ (like the triple driver SE535). But the SE215 feature a single driver and a much more modest price of $100. And for that amount of money, they deliver a sound almost on par with competitors at $200… like the Beats by Dr. Dre Tour In-Ear Headphones, which we also recently acquired. To be clear, the sound quality is less bass heavy than the Beats and the highs and mids are more crisp. We’d describe it as well balanced and distortion free even at higher volumes. But the more impressive aspect of these earphones are twofold: the sound isolation and the snug fit.

To understand what we mean, hit the jump.

While they come with a variety of interchangeable nibs, it’s the larger memory-foam ones that got our attention. It’s a quality foam that takes quite some time to regain its shape. Once inserted, it expands to efficiently hug the inner walls of your ear and forms a tight seal. It’s this seal that does an impressive job at keeping outside noises out. We’d say it’s almost on par with that of the larger Dr.Dre Beats Studio, which feature active noise cancellation. It’s also this seal that does an even more impressive job at securing the earphones in place, no matter how vigorous the activity. In fact, removing them can be difficult and you end up worrying about the tip detaching and staying in your ear. This never happened, but it’s a small concern.

Also, the particular shape of the earphones conforms exactly to the shape of the part of the ear they’re intended to nestle into. This is an advantage as well as a disadvantage. When you do succeed in inserting them, it’s very comfortable. But getting there is another story. It takes some time to figure out which angle the earphone is supposed to go in at, and it will only fit at that specific angle. It’s a tradeoff between ease of insertion and comfort, but we believe it’s worthwhile. They don’t stick out of your ears as much as the Beats and don’t fall out at all (like when jogging), unlike the Beats.

The first two inches of the cord, after the drivers themselves, retains its shape somewhat. This is important because the SE215 are not meant to be worn like traditional earphones, with the cords dangling straight down towards your front. Instead, you’re supposed to wrap them behind your earlobes and down your back. It takes some time to get used to how the cord behaves once it’s like this, but it’s a minor inconvenience.

Conclusion
We like the SE215 from Shure. They don’t deliver an impressive bass, but it is adequate for someone looking for quality reproduction. The sound is crisp, deep and distortion free. The sound isolation dramatically adds to the enjoyability of the music while the snug fit make them easy on the ears for extended listening periods. For $100, it’s a very value conscious purchase and definitely worth it.

PROS
+ Snug fit
+ Good sound isolation
+ Impeccable sound quality

CONS
- Difficult to insert and remove
- Somewhat weak bass
- Takes time to adjust to proper wear style

[ The Shure SE215 at Earphone Solutions ]

Corsair’s Flash Voyager GT line used to be the bee’s knees of ultra performant flash drives. Their SLC based 8GB Voyager GT from 5 years ago sat at the top of the USB 2.0 food chain for a long time. Sullied only by releasing an MLC based successor in 16GB (much slower than the 8GB) Voyager GT owned the land speed record nearly maxing out USB 2.0′s 40MB/s bus speeds. Fast forward to present day with USB 3.0 well at hand and the latest Corsair Flash Voyager GT 3.0 arrives, not with a roar but with a whimper. Boasting almost only above average read and write speeds for placing it just above the middle of the road at 135MB/s and 83MB/s respectively.

While this is certainly faster than most of the junk flash drives you will find on most shelves, Corsair is an enthusiast drive maker and has to be held to higher standards. They are currently leading the pack with their Force SSD and Revo drives, they should show flash drives some more love. Mediocre USB 3.0 speeds aside, all the other time tested features of the Corsair Voyager line remain. The durable rubber coating still seems protective enough to survive multiple trips through the dryer without a glitch. It’s still too big to share close quarters with other USB devices but it’s not supposed to be compact and cheap, it’s supposed to be big, fast and spacious for very demanding users. To get a full report on where its speed compares to other market devices as well as form and function head to Everything USB.

[Corsair Flash Voyager GT 3.0 Flash Drive @ Everything USB]

There are two types of technology advancements that make headlines; new things that no one has ever seen before and breakthroughs in price that generate novel ways to implement existing technology. The Wacom Bamboo Capture tablet is the latter, thanks to its groundbreaking low price. At under $80, this will be the first tablet that many aspiring artists can afford. Most pressure sensitive graphics tablets start well over $500 and that price can keep people using pen and canvas. The combination of software and hardware package with the Create is impressive.

Somehow, Wacom has managed to stuff high end graphics tablet features in this inexpensive package. The tablet responds to both the included pen and finger touch. It can detect up to 1024 distinct levels of pen pressure for dark or light strokes on the fly. It has 4 buttons that are programmable but unfortunately not application aware. The big value-add shows up in the software that’s included with the tablet. Besides the custom Wacom that’s included, you also get Adobe Photoshop Elements 8. The list of software and features goes on. If you’re interested in what else is included or how it performed, check out the review at Everything USB.

[Wacom Bamboo Capture Review @ Everything USB]

By Chris Scott Barr

If there’s one thing almost every gamer wants, it’s to game on the biggest screen possible. For a lot of people, that means hooking up their console or PC to the TV in the living room. Sure, a 40 or 50-inch TV is nice, but wouldn’t it be great if you could take up an entire wall? That’s where projectors come in. Of course, not every projector is meant to be gamed on. Most of them are built for either viewing boring charts, or movies. Well Optoma has a few that are aimed straight at gamers.

The Optoma GT750E is a gaming projector that can display games at a native 720p, and in 3D, no less. It’s also a short-throw projector, which means that you don’t have to set it clear on the other side of the room. In fact, during testing, it only had to sit a mere 50 inches from the screen to produce an 80-inch (diagonal) picture. The real question is whether or not it performs. Head over to GamerFront for the full review, and find out for yourself.

[ Optoma ] VIA [ GamerFront ]

Lenovo recently updated their paddle HTPC keyboard and the changes aren’t subtle. It already had a hit on their hands with the first generation of this very hand-friendly Multimedia Remote Keyboard and trackball. The tiny trackball has been replaced with an optical sensor that first made waves on the Raon Everun a few years back. The very responsive sensor also doubles as left click mouse button for very relaxed use. The nano dongle and the key layout are mostly unchanged. Most of the device has also been upgraded from slippery gloss finish to a more gripping rubber texture, only the keys remain glossy.

Other improvements include automatic backlighting and raised bumps on the keys for tactile navigation. The mouse buttons have been widened for larger hands to operate without adjusting their grip. The nano USB dongle can be stored in the battery compartment for travel which may be the only time you ever open it. The very strong wireless connection boasts a battery sipping 3 months of life. Other similar keyboards suffer from weak signals but the Lenovo Remote shows no sign of losing connection at even extreme ‘same room’ distances. Check out the full review at Everything USB if you are interested in how the remote fared after extended use.

[Lenovo Enhanced HTPC Remote with Keyboard Review @ Everything USB]

Hitachi has rolled out a few external hard drives that boast business class speed in a consumer form factor. While not as sleek as some other available externals, the Hitachi Touro 3TB USB 3.0 is big enough and fast enough to justify the missing sleek. It does seem to be much improved over the previous versions and many of the aesthetic concerns are explained by the need to dissipate heat on this caliber of drive. The high platter count and 7200-rpm spindle speed require design concerns that supersede fashion.

The Hitachi Touro also tops out most charts for single drive read and write performance. There are better performing drives out there but not at this price point. Besides being a genuinely good buy, the drive shows above average performance with small files. Tiny files, which are what most average users deal with pose a big challenge for hard drives. This drive shows signs of having been tweaked with extra cache to make it handle real world file use much better as opposed to artificially created large test files. If you are in the market for a beefy external drive of the USB 3.0 variety, you can get more details in a review at Everything USB.

[Hitachi Touro USB 3.0 Drive Review @ Everything USB].

The market for gaming mice is very healthy these days. Anyone making gaming devices, wishing to garner more than a sliver of purchases from the gaming world at large has to do something pretty amazing, or do something subtle really well. Logitech has tackled the latter with their latest G300 gaming mouse. The G300 doesn’t have an excessive amount of buttons or an obscene amount of DPI resolution or wildly adjustable parts. What it does have is class and the ability to suit both left and right handed players without looking like a cybernetic monstrosity. “Less is more” doesn’t do the G300 justice as they do more with less, better than most competitors do with “way too much”.

The G300 sports 9 programmable buttons, much more than can usually be supported by ambidextrous enabled devices, and doesn’t waste time on excessive programming support. Many of us gamers getting into our golden years don’t have the time or the patience to deal with tweaking to that level. Maybe it does it more justice to call this a mature mouse than an unsophisticated one. It has clean lines and an almost too narrow body that help fingers easily locate all the buttons. The G300 does add an uncharacteristically gamer-ish backlighting which is giving more sway to the Razer style that Logitech normally does. The only other ‘tamed’ feature that might actually be missed is the 1990′s era scroll wheel.

[Logitech G300 Review @ Everything USB]

If you plan on getting one or two USB 3.0 devices, then you need to shop for an USB 3.0 add-on card. SIIG has a USB 3.0 card kit that is worth checking out. The biggest draw of the kit is the included 5.25 and 3.5″ hub bay. This gives you all the function of a USB 3.0 hub, providing 4 fully powered ports on the front of your computer. Buying long USB 3.0 cables and a hub just to be able to use another USB 3.0 card gets expensive fast. SuperSpeed peripherals aren’t readily available yet nor cheap so this kit definitely offers some advantages for the all-in-one purchase.

The only major caveat of this setup is in some of the cheaper choices that could affect performance. USB 3.0 requires a huge data path, one that many manufacturers struggle to fully enable. The SIIG card only has a PCI Express x1 lane while other cards have opted for an x4. The front facing hub draws power hassle-free from the internal power connectors of your system but all 4 of the USB 3.0 ports have to share 1 connection to the card. These choices could affect “intense use” performance. Everything USB’s review has some detailed findings on what you can expect out of this card for casual and intense use alike. General opinion is that it’s more than capable but might not be all that you’d expect for the price tag.

[SIIG USB 3.0 Card, Hub Kit Review - Everything USB]

Logitech has advanced its webcam line recently with the release of the C910 HD Pro Webcam. They continue on with their core line of peripherals and while not being able to boast of any exciting new hardware features they have polished and refined their latest with considerable software improvements. While the current ‘best’ resolution for video is 1080p, current bus, bandwidth and hardware limitations have made this a bit of a unicorn for shared video. The technology base just isn’t available to reliably support that much streaming data. Logitech has opted to stick with refining 720p software solutions. Their hardware, Carl Zeiss Tessar lens and 5 megapixel sensor, could easily do 1080p but our USB 2.0 systems and bottlenecked Internet providers just can’t keep up. The vastly improved image software makes the best of whatever video signal you can muster and adjust light levels quickly and effectively.

This latest, the C910 HD, adds the “Pro” moniker in deference to the business software that’s been included. In the past, many webcams have been targeted at friends and family video chats but many businesses are now adopting person to person video conferencing as a daily part of your job. Logitech has answered this new direction with the inclusion of a trial version of FastAccess, a facial recognition and security software. While the results of the first round of tests have been mixed on the security, the over feeling is that Logitech has continued to move their product forward. For an exposé on all the new functions and any glaring weaknesses, head over to Everything USB for full review.

[Logitech C910 Webcam Review - Everything USB]