Libratone Diva

Libratone is back with another fabric-coated soundbar that has designs on Adrian Justins' living room. But can this app-controlled audio booster impress where it really matters?

If you're in the market for a soundbar you have a choice to make. You can accept a few sonic compromises and go for something slim and demure (and usually bargain-priced) or you can go for something with a bit more meat on it, something that’s more likely to deliver the sonic goods by virtue of having much larger drive units. And the latter option also offers up the possibility of discarding the otherwise essential requirement of a separate subwoofer.

Panasonic DMP-BDT270

Impressive 4K upscaling and 3D playback convinces Jamie Carter that this affordable Blu-ray player could find a place in a budget AV setup

Under fire from the likes of Netflix and an incoming Ultra HD format, the received wisdom is that the basic Blu-ray player is on borrowed time. The compact quality of the Panasonic DMP-BDT270 suggests otherwise.

Biostar Z97W Gaming

Welcome to the year 2005

What can we say about Biostar? As a company, some of us weren't even aware it existed until a month ago. That was until it debuted a new range of rather interesting consumer Z170 boards at Computex, boards with a strange ability to swap between using two sticks of DDR3 or two sticks of DDR4, depending on your budget. The Taiwanese manufacturer, of course, has actually been around for decades, but has traditionally leaned more toward business-to-business sales, as opposed to the enthusiast end of the market. So, what can be said for its Z97 gaming motherboard?

The High-Bandwidth Bomb

The PC platform, and motherboards in particular, are about to drop a bomb on your desktop

In the future, motherboards will be all about bandwidth. Actually, they already are. That’s because the big news for the PC is a whole bunch of new interconnects. And they’re all about boosting bandwidth. They’re also borderline baffling. Firstly, there’s the crazy nomenclature. Whoever thought that "SFF-8639" was a keeper needs to be strung up with SATA cables. More on that later. The confusing naming, that is, not death by middling-bandwith cable connects.

Acer V17 Nitro Black Edition

This mainstream gaming notebook

A name like V17 Nitro Black Edition inspires images of fast cars and powerful engines. Acer, not normally a company associated with high-performance systems, might be trying to change its image, it seems. And indeed, on the surface, the V17 packs some decent hardware, such as a gimmicky 3D RealSense camera. But while some parts are good choices, others leave us wanting.