Gigabyte Z97M-DS3H

A Micro-ATX motherboard that packs a decent punch

Gigabyte offers the consumer a wealth of choice when it comes to motherboards. It can deliver low-end/low-price (but relatively high-spec) boards for system builders, all the way up to models offering extreme overclocking, and feature suitable for high-end gaming desktops – at prices to match. However, it has felt like Gigabyte has taken a backseat recently with MSI leading the way in terms of features and component quality.

JXD S7800b

The ultimate handheld retro gaming tablet?

The handheld gaming, console market has exploded in recent times with the slew of Chinese-developed units invading our pockets. In the past these open and unlocked gaming handhelds didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but they did fill a gap (certainly in terms of price), underneath the rival Sony Vita and Nintendo DS, as well as allowing unrestricted access to homebrew development.

Elite: Dangerous

Elite Dangerous’ premise is as simple as it is unbelievable. This sequel to the classic 1980s space simulation gives you a small Sidewinder spacecraft, 100 credits in your pocket and a galaxy to explore and exploit as you like. That’s a 100-billion star system rendered at a scale of one-to-one. Approximately 150,000 of the stars are real systems, while the rest are procedurally generated and entirely unexplored.

CubieBoard 4

I ’m not going to lie, I was excited when I heard from Jason King at low-power computing specialist www.newit.co.uk that he was going to send me the latest device from CubieTech. I had good reason: it’s the first single-board computer I’ve had a chance to use that has a whopping eight ARM Cortex processing cores on-board.

Readers who keep up with advances in mobile technology will be familiar with ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture: the combination of four high-performance cores with four lowpower cores on a single die, which provides on-demand performance alongside the ability to keep the battery drain to a minimum in low-power situations.

Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Series

Is the new Dell Inspiron 15 5000 series too good to be true?

If someone in a pub offered you a Core i7 laptop at a knock down price, you’d probably wonder where they got it, wouldn’t you? When the new Dell Inspiron 15 5000 series arrived at my door I had a similar feeling, because not many PC manufacturers are packaging an Intel Core i7 CPU, 8GB of DRR3 and a 1TB hard drive in a portable package for less than £500.

Actually, if you’re willing to drop your expectations to a Core i5 this machine can be less than £450 – and that includes Windows 8.1 and a 15” screen.

Canon Powershot SX700 HS

Canon demonstrates its skill in shoehorning great optics into small cameras

Canon's Powershot SX700 HS sits amongst a range of its cameras made mostly for travellers who want a decent zoom lens. Compared with its cousins in the Canon stable, the Ixus models, the SX700 HS is modestly larger (112.7 x 65.8 x 34.8 mm), though it is made to the same high quality using an attractive mix of metal and plastic. This additional space allows for the mounting of at 30x optical assembly that provides the equivalent of 25-750mm zoom with f/3.2-6.9 on a old-school 35mm.