It's almost always better to purchase a last-generation flagship over a current-gen mid-range device. Last-gen flagships routinely pack better hardware, superior cameras, better performance, and more software features. You won't be getting the freshest hardware, however you'll be surprised at the value some year-old products can provide.

You've probably seen plenty of "I spent a week without my smartphone" articles based on short social experiments. Two things make this article different from all those others. First, I've been without my device for over a month now, not a week. And second, I didn't choose to go this long without my phone, it was taken from me -- in a way.

No pad from the 80s or 90s is going to compare with a DualShock 4 or Xbox controller in terms of comfort or features, nor be suitable for the games we're playing today, but that's not the point: the point will be how well did a controller reflect the games and needs of a player at the time?

For all its popularity Chrome is also notorious for its habit of consuming a lot of RAM and draining battery life on laptops. Google is continually improving in this area, but there are some things you can do to curb memory usage and keep Chrome from becoming slow and annoying. We'll also share some 'hidden' features to get the most out of your web browsing experience.

Today's modern games and many productivity applications can consume 4GB on its own, so there's little argument for not going with 8GB. However, the need for 16GB of memory is a hotly debated subject, so today we are going see if and where this much memory might be useful for desktop users.

A year or so ago I moved my gaming PC away from the TV and upstairs to my desk. I got a monitor that's better than that TV. So, I decided to start using a mouse and keyboard again. I'm not really to the point where I obsess over DPI or key resistance or anything like that. I've found a pretty standard setup, and I stick with it. It's still been interesting returning to the mouse and keyboard fold after so many years away. Here's what I've learned.

There's no shortage of great places to find something to revitalize your home screens, whether you are into beautiful landscapes, abstract illustrations or simple designs and patterns. If you are still rocking your device's default wallpaper and need some inspiration to mix it up a bit here are some great resources to get you started.

When configuring a workstation for Premiere Pro, there is a huge variety of components that you need to choose from. Everything from what CPU and video card to the number and speed of drives you need should be taken into consideration. In this article we will be testing several CPU and GPU options you might consider in a workstation.

First and foremost, why do you need a Wi-Fi information/optimization tool? Although the range of functions varies in the programs listed, they all share a common goal which is to provide the necessary information about the Wi-Fi networks available so you can choose the best options for you.

The TechSpot PC Buying Guide offers an in-depth list of today's best desktop PC hardware spanning five budgets that go from affordable to well-balanced to outright extreme machine . Whether you're a first time builder seeking guidance or a seasoned enthusiast, we have you covered.

Instant messaging is an increasingly competitive market and despite your best efforts to keep it simple, it's hard to avoid keeping two or three apps around to keep in touch with different groups of people. If this sounds familiar there are a handful of all in one messaging clients that can make things more convenient by keeping all your chats under one roof.

Last week we discussed the basics of two-factor authentication (2FA) and we wanted to delve deeper into one of its methods that go beyond SMS and app-based authentication. The FIDO U2F keys act like secure pen drives you can use for two-factor authentication and the best part of all, they are less than $20.

I love to replay games. It's something my colleagues occasionally give me crap for. They worry I'm sacrificing time I could otherwise spend on new games re-experiencing old ones. I do play games for a living, so I always try to maintain a healthy mix of new ones in my rotation. But I'm almost always replaying something.

With the wait for next-gen AMD Vega parts becoming longer than anticipated, and considering we do their latest $200-250 offering on hand, the Radeon RX 480, we're adding a new test to our 'Then and Now' series, comparing six generations of mainstream Radeon graphics cards.

After several long days seeking out the best products on show at IFA's 1.6 million square foot display area, I returned home from Berlin both impressed and excited about the future of technology.

Dell recently came knocking with a simple proposition: they would send us their XPS 13 ultraportable and the 32-inch UltraSharp UP3216Q 4k monitor to play with and see how we liked it to replace one of our editor's workstation desktop PC. Being able to give away the bundle to one of our readers post-experiment was the icing on the cake.

Last week we were in Bangkok to attend Nvidia's special media event. The product to be unveiled was unknown so I was intrigued to say the least. Having just announced the Pascal Titan X we suspected a GTX 1080 Ti card might follow. So was it a brand new high-end gaming GPU? A boring but uber-capable server GPU? Mobile, mobile was overdue.

The clipboard has evolved significantly throughout the years, but for all its usefulness, operating systems like Windows and macOS seem content with offering basic functionality and letting power users with more specific needs use third party clipboard managers. Here are our favorite options.

Netflixing alone can get lonely, so can we combine the best of both worlds? Yes, by watching the same Netflix program together in different places. Win, win, my friends. But it's not the most clear cut thing to achieve.

Your boss just pulled you into another surprise meeting. You've got a case of the Mondays. And your raise got rejected. Why not leave it all behind and roll the dice on a new career in video games? There are endless reasons to take the risk of quitting your job, and just as many reasons to tough it out and stay the safe course. The tricky part is figuring out which apply to you.

I've been an iPhone user for over six years now and up until recently I had only used Android for minutes at a time and never as my daily driver. But hearing how Google's smartphone platform had evolved so significantly since I first became an iPhone user, both in terms of software and hardware, I decided it was time to give it a try. Read on for my experiences thus far.

For the uninitiated, here's a little bit of context: Unreal Tournament drew first blood on the PC in 1999, with a fanciful, science fiction tone and particularly gory splatters. The game focused its efforts on online multiplayer. Never before, nor since, has Capture the Flag been so much fun.

For the most part we test using DDR4-3000, as it occasionally shows some benefits over the more typical 2400 and 2666 MHz speeds. Going to 4000 MHz and beyond is a massive increase in frequency (and cost) and I struggled to imagine where this would be useful, particularly when gaming. Then again, curiosity had gotten the better of me...

Valve recently overhauled Steam's review system, putting a larger focus on recent perspectives. The move made sense. Games are no longer static works. They constantly evolve thanks to updates and programs like Early Access. The system is, by and large, very useful, providing percentages that give narrow and wide snapshots of games. But numbers only tell part of the story.

If you're in the market for a new phone and don't have a ton of money to spend, most companies would want you to look at their collection of mid-range and entry-level handsets. But that's not always the smartest move if you know where to look.

These days, it seems like Valve will let just about anything on Steam. Programs like Greenlight and Early Access make it easier than ever to get a game on the preposterously popular PC storefront. Some of these games are very bad. How does this happen? What is the process actually like?

Oculus, HTC, and Sony have all released pricing details for their upcoming virtual reality headsets. But what seems pretty cut-and-dry gets complicated in a hurry when you consider they all need additional hardware to power the experience. To help make sense of it all, we've gone through the hassle of analyzing everything to see what the true cost of ownership looks like.

It's impossible to deny that 2015 was an amazing year for the PC ushering in a new golden era of PC gaming. 2016 will have to produce some truly special games to match last year's offerings, and so far, it's not doing too badly but there's still plenty more games to come. Here are our top 10 most anticipated titles.

If you're among those who've preordered a VR headset or are still on the fence, you may be wondering what are you going to be able to play with it? We've compiled a list of some of the most anticipated or interesting titles arriving soon. Keep in mind that many existing games are getting VR support, though for this list we've kept it (mostly) to made-for-VR games.

It's been a busy week as more than 90,000 people stormed Barcelona to catch the latest mobile announcements and innovations. This year's Mobile World Congress brought us new smartphones, hybrid mobile devices, more VR hype as well as wearables and IoT gear. Lets take a look at the highlights of the three-day event.