Creative is back and unveils 5 new products for the Malaysian market

395

Creative was once a well known audio brand loved by everyone, and now they are back once again to offer us amazing audio equipment. They have not bought one but five new products that will suit the needs of everyone.

Sound BlasterX Katana

The first product is the Sound BlasterX Katana made for gamers who want the best sound experience for their games and movies. The Katana is a powerful 2.1-channel sound bar that comes with a 24-bit high-resolution audio processor and certified Dolby Digital decoder, which provides realistic virtual 5.1 surround sound. The chassis is crafted with a brushed aluminium panel which features a slim profile for less than 2.5-inches. It consists of 5-drivers, comprising of two up-firing 2.5-inch midbass drivers and two 1.3-inch high-excursion tweeters and a 5.25-inch long-throw driver in its subwoofer.

It can double as a sound card that supports virtual 7.1 channel via a USB connection from a PC and supports multiple inputs like optical, Bluetooth 4.2, USB audio playback and Mic-in options. The bar is lined with 49 programmable LED lights from edge to edge and can be fully customized to fit the surrounding.

Creative Outlier Sports

The Creative Outlier Sports is a wireless in-ear headphones to take your workouts to the next level. It is an IPX4 sweatproof and a behind-the-neck design so it will not get in the way of your workout. It comes with AuraSeal silicon ear tips that ensure the earphones never slip out of your ears and seals outside noise and moisture, giving you deep bass and crystal clear hights wit ha balanced audio performance. The Outlier Sports supports Bluetooth audio with aptX and invisible microphone with ClearSpeech Engine so callers can hear your voice clearly even in noisy environments. The earphones come in striking colours of Neon Green, Fiery Orange and Midnight Blue.

Creative iRoar Go

The Creative iRoar Go is the world’s smallest and lightest 5-driver speaker system that offers great audio experience thanks to the SuperWide technology. It comes with a built-in 5200mAh battery that provides 12 hours of playtime and can charge your phone and tablets with its USB 1.0A output. The speaker is IPX6 certified water resistant so you won’t have to worry about putting it near water sources, and it can record everything happening around it into a microSD card.

It also supports playback of lossless FLAC and WAV music files via the microSD card or USB flash drive as well as HD Bluetooth audio. There is also an easy pairing system up to two devices using the easy-aim NFC reader or hook it up to your PC and Mac as an external sound card with the built-in lossless USB DAC.

Creative MUVO 2c

Designed as a powerful and splashproof speaker, the Creative MUVO 2c is the best speaker to place in your bathroom or by the poolside. It also features an in-house tuned full-range driver and an oversized passive woofer that outputs impressive bass and supports up to 6 hours of playtime. Users can enhance the speaker experience by pairing it with another MUVO 2c speaker wirelessly to amplify the audio. Other than that, you will be able to answer calls with the built-in microphone, play songs via a microSD card or use it as a computer speaker. It will come in four colours, Black, Blue, Red and Green.

Creative NUVO Micro

Finally, is the NUVO Micro which is covered with woven cloth and gives an appeal of simple, well made handcrafted piece of art which would be perfect to place in any location. Weighing only 180 grams, it will be easy to carry around and play all your tunes via Bluetooth or the aux-in port. There is also a built-in mic so you can answer your calls and listen to your callers through the speaker. The NUVO Micro will come in two colours, Black and Heather Gray.

All of these Creative products are available from ALL IT Hypermarkets in KLCC and IOI City mall, Asashi Technology, and IT STUFF Plaza Hartamas at the following prices:

Creative Sound BlasterX Katana – RM1,299

Creative Outlier Sports – RM299

Creative iRoar Go – RM849

Creative MUVO 2c – RM199

Creative NUNO Micro – RM99

If online shopping is more your thing, you can get it at CVG ONLINE STORE on Lazada and Shopee.

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Creative Outlier Pro Review: best ANC earbuds with 15 hour battery life for $80

6.6K

Unlike other audio brands, Creative Labs has been taking a slower and steady pace in the wireless earbuds market, I’ve been a big fan of their three year old Outlier Gold earbuds and have looked forward to its successor ever since, and here we are, the Creative Outlier Pro is the company’s most feature packed wireless earbuds to date with hybrid active noise cancellation and a crazy good battery life of up to 15 hours per charge for US$80, which is a very attractive price tag and here’s what you need to know about it.

Top: Creative Outlier Gold, Bottom: Creative Outlier Pro

Let’s start off with the charging case, it is significantly bigger than the Outlier Gold’s case because of a bigger battery inside that offers up to four charges that extends listening time to an incredible 60 hours, the case charges over USB-C and Creative has added Qi wireless charging which is super convenient, I’m glad that the case uses the same magnesium alloy exterior and the drawer that stores the earbuds are no longer that wobbly as the Outlier Gold’s.

Left: Creative Outlier Pro, Right: Creative Outlier Gold

Left: Creative Outlier Pro, Right: Creative Outlier Gold

The earbuds are huge as well on the outside and uses 10mm graphene drivers, but thankfully they fit in my ears very well and doesn’t come out easily when I’m doing workouts, they unfortunately lack in-ear detection sensors so you’ll have to manually pause your music when you take them out.

The touch capacitive controls work very well for large fingers and can be customized with single tap, double taps and triple taps within the Creative app, which also allows you to set noise cancellation and ambient sound strength, and has an audio equalizer that I’m impressed with the number of EQ presets it comes with and even caters for specific games on PC and mobile.

For those who wants to try out Creative’s Super X-Fi holographic sound, the Outlier Pro supports that but you can only experience it within the Super X-Fi app.

Pairing the Outlier Pro is straightforward even though there’s no support for Google’s Fast Pair or Microsoft’s Swift Pair, it supports Bluetooth 5.2 and the AAC codec, which can disappoint those that prefers the aptX codec but I can assure you that it has very low audio latency in both games and movies.

The Creative Outlier Pro only supports the AAC and SBC codec, which might disappoint some as the Outlier Gold supports aptX.

The Outlier Pro sounds very dynamic and is suitable for a different range of music, it has very punchy mid and lower end bass, it slacks a little on mids and vocals while maintaining good highs on pop music, it can sound a little messy when playing music with many instruments, but overall it performs very well than most other $100 wireless earbuds.

Even if they don’t have active noise cancellation, sound isolation on these earbuds are already darn good just like its predecessor and once you turn on Active Noise Cancellation, it totally blocks out keyboard clacks and human conversations in an office or café with its feedforward and feedback mic, announcement in trains sounds muffled when music isn’t playing, the mics however don’t cancel out higher frequencies like dog barks, despite that it still has the best noise cancellation performance of any earbuds I’ve tested under $100.

I’m also very impressed with the Ambient mode in which the microphone does a great job of letting sound in as if you aren’t wearing the earbuds, but unlike the AirPods Pro you can still feel them physically in your ear and they can feel heavy after wearing for long durations.

Reverse wireless charging the Creative Outlier Pro with the Moto Edge 30 Pro

During the two week review period, I never got the chance to drain the battery completely to test the 15 hour claim and the battery merely dropped about 10% even when I’m already on it for 3 hours per session with ANC turned on, which other earbuds would have easily lost more than 30% of battery for such listening sessions, so if you are on a long flight to the US from Asia, the Outlier Pro is a very serviceable pair of ANC earbuds.

Creative ships the Outlier Pro to Malaysia and at this time of publishing, it can be purchased at an even lower price of $68 which converts to approximately RM281, it is a killer price for the sound performance and features you are getting, and I have very little to complain about for what it is priced at. Head over
here
 to purchase the Creative Outlier Pro from Creative’s online store.

Creative Outlier Pro

Boasting 15 hours of battery life on a single charge, bigger sound with 10mm graphene drivers, the Creative Outlier Pro is an excellent pair of value for money $80 wireless earbuds.

KLGadgetGuy

Creative Outlier Pro

8

The Goods

Dynamic sound for different music genres

Excellent fit for fitness

15 hours battery life on a single charge

Qi wireless charging

Really affordable

The Bads

No in-ear detection sensor

Super X-Fi only works on native app

Big size can make ears feel strained after long durations

 8.0

Average Score

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Creative Outlier Sports Review: Affordable Sports Headphone with Great Sound

378

I was never a fan of sports headphones, because most of them I’ve come across are usually expensive, offer features that I don’t really use, have subpar sound quality and worse of all, some offer battery life that doesn’t last till my second 2 hour workout, which can be rather annoying if you forget to charge your headphones before hitting the gym. I received the Creative Outlier Sports for review a month ago and was pretty excited about to try it out. Creative isn’t the first company that comes into the picture when you think of sports headphones, as they are actually more well known for its SoundBlaster sound cards, speakers and its flagship Aurvana series headphones, hence it is rather interesting to find out how Creative could do better than its competitors when it comes to the sports headphone category.

The Outlier Sports is one of the products that made entry to the Malaysian market when Creative announced its return. Like many other sports headphone, the Outlier Sports uses an over the neck design, and I am glad that Creative has really wrapped a layer of rubberized plastic on the protect the cable, this also helps to avoid it slipping off as you wear it around your neck. The earbuds are very well-built and ergonomically designed, both sides already come pre-installed with rubberized wing tips, which helps secure them in your ear as you are running, you also have the option of changing to the one without the wing.

The music control module is thankfully a lightweight and thin one, so that you don’t actually feel a bulk as you are wearing it, they aren’t difficult to press and have a physical touch instead of a flat surface, so that you know you are really pressing on a button. Music controls are also very straightforward, the volume up and down buttons are used for skipping tracks when you long press them, the middle button is used for power, Bluetooth pairing and answering a phone call. Instead of using a cradle or proprietary connector, the Outlier Sports charges using a standard MicroUSB port, and it takes around 2 hours to fully charge it in my test, while offering close to the company’s claimed 11 hours of battery life in a single charge.

Out of the box, you get a nice case for storing the headphones, ear tips of different sizes and a short MicroUSB cable for charging.

Sound Quality and Performance

Most sports headphones I have come across usually have rather flat frequencies, and that makes a lot of sense when you want to concentrate on your workouts without having too much emphasis on low and high frequencies, but on the other hand, some may just want that little oomph in their music to be more motivated at workouts, hence the Outlier Sports aim to deliver that in audio playback. On a side note, the Outlier Sports supports the aptX codec, which in laymen terms, it enables better data transmission between the headphones and a supported audio playback device, hence offering close to CD-quality streaming, this is a feature that not many wireless headphones in the same range offer.

In my audio tests, the Outlier Sports is decent when it comes to producing bass frequencies, mids and highs are well controlled with a decent soundstage, which you don’t get that annoying sharp and hissing sound if you are listening to high pitched vocals. I mainly listen to Pop and K-Pop on Spotify with Extreme Quality, the Outlier Sports managed to play Alan Walker’s Faded with some decent amount of bass in the chorus part, while maintaining clarity in vocal and instruments; the same experience can also be applied to BTS’ MIC DROP, the Outlier Sports is able to produce a really satisfying bass response in the bass heavy intro, great for some oomph and motivation in workouts.

During the review period, I used the Outlier Sports for my train rides to town for meetings, I really loved how it was able to isolate background noise despite not having any noise cancellation feature, the wing tips managed to keep the earbuds in place and fits my ear perfectly as you can see in the picture. The Outlier Sports’ microphone is an impressive hardware, and probably one of the best if not the best out there, my colleague was able to hear my voice clearly when I was talking at a busy train station, where there’s obvious background noise of moving cars, train announcements and people talking around me, while the noise isolation ear tips does help listening to voice calls better in such environments.

Verdict

At RM299, the Creative Outlier Sports managed to hit the sweet spot price tag for a decent pair of sports headphones, in fact I won’t even consider this to be a mere headphone for workouts, you can have it replace your usual Bluetooth handsfree and probably invest one for your jack-less smartphone, the 11-hour battery life and IPX4 weather-proof feature is also something that you can hardly get in other headphones of the same price range. If you don’t need fancy fitness tracking features and just want good sound on general, look no further on the Creative Outlier Sports.

The Good

Great sound quality for the price

Great battery life

Supports aptX codec

IPX4 weather-proof

Comfortable and noise isolation ear tips

The Not so Good

Cable could be short for thicker necks

Bass is decent, but not made for bass heads

No fast charging

Creative Outlier Sports retails at RM299, get it
here
.

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outlier sports review


Creative Releases Sound BlasterX G5: 7.1 External Sound Card and Amplifier

390

Creative didn’t release anything for past few months, but they now are back and will be releasing an external
sound
card

that comes with the built-in SB-Axx1 multi-core chipset; Sound BlasterX G5. It features a 7.1 HD audio external
sound card

with built-in headphone amplifier that can supports multi-channel content, delivering true 7.1 audio for ultra-realistic surround sound.

It has the built with precision audiophile components, the Sound BlasterX G5 has a 24-bit/192kHz, 120dB
USB
DAC

and headphone amplifier with 2.2-ohm output impedance for high fidelity playback. The device has an illuminated volume control knob and dedicated SBX and Scout Mode buttons also allow for quick volume or audio adjustments during gaming sessions.

Apart from that, the Sound BlasterX Gaming series also comes with the BlasterX Acoustic Engine software for PC that allows gamers to customize their audio profile. This designed to intelligently decrease distractions and enhance essential audio details in games, giving gamers an added advantage. There will be a new headphone coming from the company and it namely the Sound Blaster H7 Professional HD 7.1
Surround
USB
Gaming
Headset
, the Sound BlasterX H5 Professional H5 Professional Analog Gaming Headset.

Other products in the Sound BlasterX series, namely the Sound Blaster H7 Professional HD 7.1
Surround
USB
Gaming
Headset
, the Sound BlasterX H5 Professional Analog Gaming Headset, and the Sound BlasterX P5 High-Performance In-ear Gaming Headset will be announced in separate press releases.

The Sound BlasterX G5 is the price at USD 149.99 and will be available at the online store at
creative
.
com

on November 2015.

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Creative’s Super X-Fi is going to change the way you watch movies and listen music

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When most prominent tech companies have gigantic booth setups in the main halls of COMPUTEX 2018, Creative Labs, the company more famously known for its Sound Blaster sound cards, has a cozy private room here to demonstrate the company’s next groundbreaking product – Super X-Fi, I got to know it first from my friend Aloysius Low at
CNET
 a couple of months back, which he claims it to be frigging mind blowing and magical, I was eager to try it out for myself, and it turns out to be a really refreshing experience when my mind has been boggled with RGB peripherals for the day.

Before joining the demo, the staffs at Creative took a picture of my face and both ears with a special calibration app, which I was very impressed with how well it managed to detect the shape of my ears, this data is used to train the AI engine to produce sound that fits my facial profile and ear size. Creative says that this process is important as every face and ear perceives sound differently, however there’s no need for that when the final product is being released. Super X-Fi may seem complicated when you want to know the technicalities, but in a nutshell, it aims to make surround sound realistic on a 2-channel headphone, it’s like really having 7-speakers playing in your headphones, hence Creative isn’t even calling it ‘virtual surround’ like other headphone manufacturers, and it considers it as ‘Holographic Sound’.

While in the demo room, we continued to do a 30-second sound calibration with a pair of earbud microphones, the 7.1 sound system right in front played noise and sci-fi sound repeatedly, this is done to let the system understand how our ears react to the sound that is being played. Creative then proceed to play a few sample videos with Dolby Atmos sound effect, while asking us to take off and put on the Super X-Fi enabled headphones to compare the effect with their $6000 7-channel home theater system, it really feels like the speakers hasn’t left me even when I put on the headphones, it isn’t perfect but it does tend to set a significant difference from those so called ‘virtual 7.1 surround’ headphones.

What impresses me the most is how Super X-Fi managed to turn a standard 2.0 music track into a realistic live surround effect, it is done so well that as if the artist is singing right in front of me and it doesn’t have that fake echo effect that virtual surround sound speakers and headphones tend to produce. Creative says that they are working with music streaming and live streaming apps to integrate Super X-Fi, and it has been working with the 17 Live Streaming service in Taiwan, and teased that it could be even coming to apps like iFlix in time to come.

You can call Super X-Fi both a hardware and software sound solution, as Creative is about to release a free Super X-Fi music player app for iOS and Android devices soon to let users experience it coming this month, the app will do pretty much the same sound enhancements and can play local music files only. As for the hardware treatment, Creative has made a nice dongle which consists of a 32-bit DAC, headphone amplifier and the Super X-Fi sound processor, it will support both iOS and Android devices with a USB-C to Lighting and USB-C to USB-C cable respectively, power will be drawn from the devices so there’s no need to charge the dongle.

Creative says that Super X-Fi will basically work on any headphones or speakers you use, but the company also recommends that we look out for Super X-Fi certified headphones for the best possible results, the Super X-Fi dongle will be available around July-August and costs $150 (RM600), which is definitely worth it if you are a person that is used to invest in DACs and headphones. I’ll be looking forward to try out the Super X-Fi app and report back, and let’s hope it works as advertised.

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Creators Update will not be seen on all Windows 10 Mobile phones

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Creator’s Update for Windows 10 will be coming out soon, sadly, the same can’t be say for certain Windows 10 Mobile devices as some of them will never see the new update. Microsoft Lumia devices however, will be covered from Lumia 550 and above. Other than that, the Alcatel Idol 4S, Hp Elite X3 and VAIO Phone Biz will be some of the 3rd party that qualify for the update.

Microsoft have been getting complaints what Windows does not offer the “best possible experience” on older phones. Even with the release of Windows 10 Mobile, it suffered some performance issues when not on recent hardware. Dona Sarkar from Microsoft, has made a statement for those running the new update outside the supported hardware range, saying that they will be running the new update “at their own risk”.

It’s not new when a OS developer has skip certain devices with the new update because of the advancement in their own OS that older devices will not be able to support using their current hardware. However, Microsoft has a reputation for ending support for older devices too fast and promote its users to buy a more update device, which will increase chances of users changing to another platform

Source:
Engadget

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Crispy clear Moto G4 renders leaked

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Anyone up for some last minute leaks again? Of course, the Moto G4 had countless leaks over the past couple of weeks, but this time we’re looking at crispy clear lovely renders of the alleged device which will be launched later today at Lenovo’s event at India. These leaked press renders are courtesy of none other than famous tipster Evan Blass on his Twitter @evleaks.

Tracking back to an earlier leak by Blass last month, from the looks of it, the Moto G4 seems to largely retain many Moto-esque design, considering the fact that Motorola is already under Lenovo but it seems like Motorola is still given a free hand to do their own thing. The render also shows us a Moto G4 in white, housed by a metal frame. Seen on the front is a square shaped fingerprint sensor. Aside from that, we’re glad that the Moto G4 will still be running on a near-stock Android based on the first image, instead of a Lenovo skinned VIBE UI or something, which isn’t something to be proud of in the first place.

We’ll be expecting a slightly more premium Moto G4 Plus to be unveiled alongside the standard G4. For now, we all know that both handsets are rumored to sport a 5.5-inch Full HD display, 2GB of RAM or 3GB of RAM on the Plus variant and 16GB or 32GB of internal storage. In the camera department, we’re looking at a 13MP/5MP camera pair on the Moto G4 and a possibility of a slight bump up to 16MP on the Moto G4 Plus’ primary camera. Till then, let’s wait for Lenovo to unveil the handset later today.

Source:
Evan Blass (Twitter)

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Crono Labs releasing C1 computer case

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Crono Labs will be a new crowd-funded startup that’s on a mission to turn monitors with VESA mounts into AIO-looking, gaming monstrosities. Their contraption will be lightweight micro-ATX chassis that can be mounts onto the back of your monitor over standard VESA mounts and houses a micro-ATX or mini-2.5-inch drive bays plus a 2-slot graphics card bay that’s arranged along the plane of the motherboard, rather than perpendicular to it, using a PCIe riser. The
case

will be offering room for graphics cards as long as 10.5-inches (26.67 cm).

The
case

will come with a sturdy
stand
, so users will not worry about any object that less than 10 lbs (the
case

and your build) on your monitor’s frail
stand
. The
case

is airy along its side and is topped off with a groovy brushed aluminium panel. The team trying to reach the goal as much as USD 2,000 to build the first prototypes on Indiegogo campaign.

Other than that, the
case
 features a short VGA, HDMI and branching
power
cable
 that will come with the
case
 for reduced cable clutter. Included will be a rotated motherboard point the IO ports downwards for tidier cables and the motherboard has been raised up to allow cables to go beneath it. Water cooling is possible on this tight case either with 120mm cooler and 240mm cooler, at the same time.

This Indiegogo campaign is one of the most innovative product we ever encounter and let’s hope they will hit the goal and produce this case massively.

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Croove is a new car sharing platform by Mercedes-Benz

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Mercedes-Benz has launched a new car sharing platform in Munich, Germany called Croove, claiming to transform the way people look at cars. Croove will make it possible for its users to rent cars from others to be driven.

Mercedes has assured that Croove will allow non-Mercedes drivers to try out the company’s latest car models. Croove isn’t the first ever car sharing service, with Turo in the US and Snappcar in the Netherlands providing similar services in their respective locations. Croove apparently suits the CASE (Connectivity, Autonomous Driving, Sharing and Electric Drive Systems) of Mercedes. The company has claimed Croove to be less expensive and more flexible compared to the current conventional car rental services. Nissan has also introduced a car sharing service recently, but in a different way since it only enables split ownerships for cars, and not temporary use of the vehicles.

Croove will be available exclusively in Munich, Germany for the foreseeable future, with Mercedes possibly looking at it as a testing ground before attempting to venture further. The Croove app is now only available for iOS devices, Mercedes has promised an Android rollout soon. What do you think?

Source:
Mercedes Blog

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Crucial DDR5 Pro 16GB x 2 DDR5-5600 Review: Decent Performance with Good Overclocking Headroom

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Building a gaming PC can be both exhausting and exciting, and one of the component choices you might be contemplating is RAM, which is one of the most important components that helps accelerate your workflow regardless of productivity or gaming.

This ultimately brings us to making the choice between DDR4 and DDR5 RAM, as prices of the latter has come down recently, while picking up DDR4 RAM would get you more motherboard choices, which can ultimately save some money in your PC build.

Therefore, we have the Crucial DDR5 Pro 16GB x 2 DDR5-5600 memory kit in for review, this kit is one of the more affordable 16GB DDR5 kits that we can find in the market right now, and we will be doing a comparison on our 12th Gen Intel build with a DDR4 and DDR5 motherboard to find out whether the kit is worth your money.

One of the main reasons that you will want to go for DDR5 RAM is the increased memory bandwidth for multi core processors and has better power efficiency than DDR4 as it merely operates at 1.1V, which will greatly benefit applications and games that takes advantage of multi core processing.

The Crucial DDR5 Pro doesn’t come with any RGB lighting and features a simple black heat spreader, which is good for those who prefers a less flashy system.

The Crucial DDR5 Pro offers two Intel XMP profiles with speeds of 5200MT/s and 5600MT/s, the overclocked memory timings are a little loose and you definitely lose out to any DDR4 systems when it comes to memory latency.

However, let’s take a look at the benchmarks we have performed on both of our systems

DDR4 Test System

CPU:
 Intel Core i7-12700K

RAM:
 Corsair LPX Vengeance 16GB x 2 DDR4-3200MHz

Storage:
 WD Blue SN570 1TB SSD

GPU:
 AMD Radeon RX6900XT

Mobo:
 Asrock Z690M-ITX

PSU:
 Silverstone DA850 Gold 850W

DDR5 Test System

CPU:
 Intel Core i7-12700K

RAM:
 Crucial DDR5 Pro 16GB x 2 DDR5-5600MT/s

Storage:
 Crucial T700 1TB PCIe 5.0 SSD

GPU:
 AMD Radeon RX6900XT

Mobo:
 ASUS ROG Strix Z790E Gaming WiFi

PSU:
 FSP Hydro PTM Pro 1200W

Crucial DDR5 Pro AIDA64 Memory Benchmark

On AIDA64 Memory Benchmark, the Crucial DDR5 Pro clearly pulls ahead of our DDR4 system with two times the memory bandwidth, which is very impressive considering it only uses 1.1V on Intel XMP as our DDR4 RAM requires 1.35V to make it to 3200MHz, though the Crucial DDR5 Pro’s default XMP timings gave it a longer latency of 91.8ns compared to 70.9ns on our DDR4 system.

Thankfully, the Crucial DDR5 Pro has a lot of headroom for overclocking and we managed to push it 6000MHz with improved timings of 46-43-43-68 @ 1.3V, which offers slightly more bandwidth in memory benchmarks and a significantly reduced latency of 79.6ns.

Crucial DDR5 Pro Gaming Benchmark

Moving on to gaming, there’s very little difference when it comes to their average frame rates, among the four AAA game titles we tested, the Crucial DDR5 Pro managed to outperform the DDR4 system at overclocked speeds in Hogwarts Legacy, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and A Plague Tale: Requiem.

Crucial DDR5 Pro 7-Zip and Cinebench R23 Benchmark

In terms of productivity and creative benchmarks, this is where the Crucial DDR5 Pro really shines over our DDR4 system, where it managed to get more than 30% of improvement in Compressing and Decompressing tasks in 7-Zip. In Cinebench, the Crucial DDR5 Pro offers a 9% score improvement in the multi-core test.

Overall, the Crucial DDR5 Pro is a really decent memory kit and you will definitely get some good performance gains over DDR4 if you are mainly doing creative and productivity workflows, the 32GB memory kit is currently available for purchase at Crucial’s flagship
Lazada
 and
Shopee
 store.

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Crucial unveils New Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 White Modules at Gamescom

289

Crucial is one of the world’s memory and storage will announce its upcoming complimentary white digital camo heat spreader and unique white printed circuit board (PCB) option as part of its Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 memory offering. All these modules will be showcased in conjunction with Gamescom in Cologne, August 5th – 9th, offer the same DDR4 performance and proven reliability that gamers have come to expect from Crucial.

The memory is designed for mainstream users who need to get more performance out of their systems, Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 memory are able to deliver fast speeds and increased bandwidth. Besides that, the memory also will be available in both white and gray, and an integrated heat spreader with the capabilities to allow gamers to plug and play installation or Intel XMP 2.0 profiles to achieve DDR4 speeds of 2400 MT/s, Ballistix Sport LT memory delivers seamless, affordable performance.

The Ballistix Sport LT DDR4 modules are available at
Crucial
.
com

and through select global partners in 4GB and 8GB capacity, as well as kits up to 32GB. Additionally, 16GB densities and 64GB kits will be available starting in September 2015, as well as the white Ballistix Sport LT modules. All the memory kits will be backed with a lifetime warranty.

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CRYORIG Announces M9i and M9a Ultra Compact Tower Coolers

304

CRYORIG just released their CPU cooler a few months ago, today they announced more new CPU cooler – M9i and M9a. Both models offer a compact tower cooling solution with three 6-mm heat pipes, True Copper Base, and 92 mm 2,200 rpm PWM fan. The CRYORIG M9i/M9a is an entry-level tower heatsink that is both compact and affordable but comes packing with material and tech comparable to CRYORIG’s other ultra-high-end products.
Three 6-millimeter high-performance copper heat pipes and a True Copper Base makes up the core of the M9i/M9a with bucking the trend of removing the costly copper base in entry-level products. The True Copper Base improves heat conduction and contact area for all the heat pipes. Together with CRYORIG’s proprietary Jet Fin Acceleration System enabled aluminum fins, makes for the high performance seen on such product.

The cooler has wider air intake section and narrow air exhaust section allows for easy airflow intake and faster air exhaust. Also seen for the first time, will be a new edition of CRYORIG’s renowned MultiSeg Quick
Mount
 System that makes the M9i/M9a extremely easy to install, while a sturdy backplate system protects the mainboard from added force and PCB bend.

The M9 will be released in October globally with a suggested price at USD 26.99 (approx. RM 120.)

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CRYORIG Announces the C7 Ultra Compact Cooler

344

Thermal is always an issue for the desktop then Crybroig will release a new addition to it’s C series lineup and also its smallest cooler to date – C7 compact cooler. First revealed in Computex 2015 the C7 is a low profile cooler with a max height of 47mm and makes it only 2mm taller than the Intel Stock Heatsink which mean the cooler will fit almost all case designs

Despite its size the C7 also packs a heavy dose of cooling with a total of 4 high performance heat pipes and fitted with a dedicated 92mm 2500 rpm PWM fan with Cryorig proprietary Quad Air Inlet System for maximum airflow. This fan will provide 25% more cooling capacity than stock heatsinks from Intel/AMD while being up to 20% lower in noise. Besides that, the C offers 40.5 CFM, 2.8mm H20 air pressure at 30.0dBA.

The cooler specially made to fit most of mini-ITX case to reduce space because most of the people that using a small case require a super cooling on a small case. The C7 will be released in September in South-East Asia, with European markets targeted later in October with the price at USD 29.99 (approx. RM 130).

cooling
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CRYORIG and NZXT collaborates on the new H7 heatsink

366

CRYORIG, the PC cooling and peripherals innovator has just announced their collaboration project with NZXT to release the software controlled RGB LED H7 Quad Lumi. The Lumi featured a total of four 6 mm high-end copper heatpipes, NZXT CAM Powered Lumi Lighting System as well as a new QF120 1,600 RPM LED fan. By co-developing it with NZXT, a RGB LED controller was directly built into the H7 Quad Lumi and because its running on NZXT’s CAM, the cooler can control the logo and base lighting of the heatsink through the CAM software and smartphone app.

Utilizing NZXT’s Hue+ controller board and CAM software system, the heatsink will have nine different lighting effects at launch and more to come with future firmware updates, the LUMI system is also capable of dual channel LED configurations, allowing the top and base LED to have different colours and as well as different lighting effects.

The H7 Quad Lumi is based of the CRYORIG H7 with a improvement on the four high performance heatpipes for added TDP capacity and a reworked mounting system. Due to the upgrade of the heatsink, the heat dissipation has an increased performance by at lease 15% and supports 160+ watt CPUs. The new quick mount system will provide support for LGA2011 v3 as well as the LGA115x and AMD’s AM4 sockets.

CRYORIG has also mention that its QF120 line of fans will soon all feature LED variants as well, the H7 Quad Lumi will be released in June worldwide with a MSRP of $59.99 (RM259.58). For more information on the heatsink, visit CRYORIG official website
here
.

cam
cooler
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Hue+
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nzxt


CRYORIG Unveils New CUSTOMOD Covers and CRYO-Paste

332

Just two weeks away before Computex 2015 kick start, computer cooling innovator Cryorig is releasing information of two new product line, the CUSTOMOD line of customization accessories and a new line of Cryo-Paste thermal interfaces. They push forward true aftermarket modding and customization opportunities to release its brand new CUSTOMOD line of colored heat sink covers for its favourable applauded R1 Universal and R1 Ultimate heat sinks that’s come with 6 different colors; Red, Blue, Green, Orange and the original Black and White.

As a companion, the CUSTOMOD line of products during Computex 2015 will be three new Cryo-Paste thermal interface products, the CP5, CP7 and CP15. The CP15 is made for entry level users that don’t require heavy usage. In other hands the CP7 will be a good combination of Performance and the CP5 will be the absolute best in Performance with the help of Thermal Performance, and Particle Density; CP5, CP7, and CP15 packaging will include a mini spreader that’s specially designed for the CPU application is also included, as well as an alcohol pad to clean the CPU surface for an immaculate application.


CRYORIG unveils the R5 and brings copper fins to selected coolers

370

CRYORIG is back again to unveil two new CPU coolers that will be shown at Computex 2017, the CRYORIG R5 high-end single tower and the Cu Series of Copper Fin enhanced coolers.

The R5 is the second cooler in the R series of flagship coolers, it is a high-end dual-fan single tower that is designed to stay within the mainboard’s CPU Keep-Out-Zone, this means you will get zero RAM interference even on Intel’s X99/X299 platforms. The cooler will comes with CRYORIG’s cooling innovations such as the Convex-Align cooler base optimization, Multi-Seg Quick Mount System, 6 CRYORIG High-end Copper Heatpipes, and CRYORIG Dual Fan Fin Optimizations.

In addition to that, it will also have Dual XF140 800 – 1,400 rpm RWM fans attached to the back and front of the cooler for enhanced performance and will come with CRYORIG’s Quick Lock Mounting to simplify the mounting.

On the other hand, CRYORIG’s Cu enhanced Performance Edition coolers, where aluminum provides good performance, weight and cost, the cooper fins provides roughly twice the heat conductivity compared to aluminum. Due to this, CRYORIG is hand picking some of their past coolers and fitting them with brand new pure copper fins.

Besides the R5 and Cu series, the CRYORIG Taku will also be shown during the exhibition, the company can be found at Nangan Exhibition Hall 1, first floor booth i1105 from May 30 to June 3.

cooler
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Crytek to shut down offices amidst financial issues

365

Crytek, the developers of the Crysis series, have been facing some financial difficulties as of late, with employees reporting that they’ve been receiving their paycheques late. This and other complaints have surfaced on the internet, signalling that all may not be well at Crytek. Today, those signals have proven true as Crytek will be closing of some of its global studios and laying off employees that work there.

In a statement
 released to the public, Crytek has mentioned that it will be implementing a series of changes to its future business plans in order to “refocus on its core strengths of developing innovative games and game-development technology,” of which CryEngine will be the “core pillar” of the company’s overall strategy. To do so, the company will concentrate development in its Frankfurt and Kiev studios. Crytek has also added that other development studios other than the ones mentioned above “will not remain within Crytek and management has put plans into action to secure jobs and to ensure a smooth transition and stable future.

Simply put, Crytek will be closing down its offices in Hungary, Bulgaria, Seoul, Shanghai and Istanbul, and all of its employees will be laid off. As for the salary conditions, rumours are going around that a Russian internet company called Mail.ru has bought a free-to-play game by Crytek called Warface and its successor Warface 2. This is could probably be the reason why Crytek is now able to pay its Frankfurt staff their October salaries.

Source:
Eurogamer
,
Crytek

crytek
employee
financial
layoff
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shutdown


Crytek's Back to Dinosaur Island VR experience is available on Steam right now

385

For those with a VR headset, you may download and experience Crytek’s Back to Dinosaur Island demo for free. It’s not a game per se, but it’s a pretty stunning demonstration of what VR is capable of at the moment, and it has dinosaurs!. Back to Dinosaur Island was first presented during GDC in March, as Crytek announced Robinson: The Journey with another VR experience that seems to extend the premise of Back to Dinosaur Island.

During June this year, Crytek made an announcement, Robinson will “offer players an unparalleled sense of presence in a game world as they assume the role of a young boy who has crash-landed on a mysterious planet. During GDC, Tyler claim there is a little bit rattled happening which make him realize that we’re going to have to put a lot of trust in the people making VR games.

People who are interested in Back to Dinosaur Island, and you can download it on Steam.

SOURCE:
Steam

crytek
dinosaur
dinosaurisland
free
pcgaming
steam
steamgames
virtualreality
vr
vrgaming


Customisable case to suit your mood with OtterBox MySymmetry

271

Having just the same ol’ boring smartphone
case

can be pretty boring after a while, so what OtterBox did with its new MySymmetry
case

is to let you switch the style of your
case

depending on your current mood, or even to match your outfit for the day.

With MySymmetry, you can play with its easy-to-install one piece swappable design insert that you can switch out easily anytime you feel like it. Since the OtterBox MySymmetry Series has a clear
case

back, you can customise the design inserts yourself with your artistic style; all you need is to make your own insert with some cardboard and stationeries. If you expect the MySymmetry to be bulky since it offers good protection, be surprised! This particular series slips easily into pockets and purses, and its dual-material, single layer build makes it one of the slimmest and toughest cases in its class. It still has a rugged construction and a screen bumper to protect your screen from cracking.

MySymmetry comes in in a spectrum of colours including red, blue and pink, with grey and black coming soon. It will be available for
Apple
iPhone
 5S/5C/6, and Samsung Galaxy S5/S6. These cases will retail for RM169.

By the way, if you have MySymmetry
case
, do take some time to join the #MyOtterDesign competition which is now happening live. Design your own insert, upload a picture on Instagram with a #MyOtterDesign hashtag, and the best design of the month wins an exciting OtterBox hamper! Log on to
http://www.otterbox.asia/myotterdesign/
 for instructions on how to join and win.

casing
contests
customisable
mysymmetry
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smartphone


Cutting edge Lenovo Phab 2 Pro to go on sale in November

326

Does the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro still ring a bell? We hope it still does. But just in case it doesn’t, the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro is Google’s first ever Project Tango phone that was unveiled a couple of months back in June. The revolutionary handset, that utilizes multiple sensors for the implementation of Tango technology, will finally go on sale this coming November.

During the launch at Lenovo’s event, the Phab 2 Pro was initially set for a September release. However, we discovered earlier last month that the said release has been pushed back to some time “this fall”, according to Lenovo’s official website. Fall is a pretty vague time frame, but Google’s head of VR, Clay Bavor has informed news outlet CNET that the phone will be released next month. Having said that, Bavor did not state a reason for the quiet delay by Google and Lenovo.

The Lenovo Phab 2 Pro is equipped with Project Tango’s depth sensing 3D camera system, enabling augmented reality gaming and utilities with a couple more extra cameras and sensors than the usual smartphone. The handset sports a massive 6.4-inch display at QHD resolution, a Snapdragon 652 processor with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable memory. It features a 16MP rear camera, coupled with an 8MP camera for selfies. Powering the device is a huge 4,050mAh battery with 2.4x turbo charge support.

Now that the release date has been narrowed down to within a month, we shall just patiently wait for the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro to go on sale, rather than putting our hopes on future uncertainty. What do you think?

Source:
CNET

2
date
google
lenovo
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phab
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Cyanogen announces the new Cyanogen Modular OS program

351

Cyanogen once had great ambitions of being the next big mobile platform in the market. However, the year hasn’t been kind to them,
as the company was hit with layoffs
 as well as rumours of a pivot to apps instead. Today, Cyanogen has announced its next big project, and it looks like the it would be tackling modular OS next.

In a statement issued by the Cyanogen, the company announces that it will be working on a new Cyanogen Modular OS program. According to the statement, the Cyanogen Modular OS program would introduce “intelligent, customizable Android smartphones using different parts of the Cyanogen OS via dynamic modules and MODs, with the ROM of their hoice, whether stock Android or their own variant.”

Previously, Cyanogen has worked on modular software via the MOD program. This program allowed partners to tweak deep into the Android ecosystem to create a custom OS. According to Cyanogen’s new CEO Lior Tal, this program required working with the OS’ full stack, making it a laborious and limiting feature. With Cyanogen’s Modular OS program, manufacturers will potentially be able to ship phones that use discrete aspects of the Cyanogen OS. For example, a phone running on stock Android would be able to pull in custom features and apps from the Cyanogen side.

Source:
Engadget
,
Cyanogen

cyanogen
cynogenmodularos
operatingsystem
software


Cyanogen conducts layoffs; prepares to swap from OS development to apps [Update]

282

All may not be well at Cyanogen as reports are coming out that the software company seems to be laying off 20 percent of its workforce in an attempt to “pivot to apps.”

Based on reports by Android Police, it appears that the layoffs will mainly affect Cyanogen’s open source arm. Sources from Android Police states that the systems and QA teams in Palo Alto and Seattle have also been heavily cut, with Cyanogen’s smaller offices in Lisbon and India being “essentially gutted.”

The layoffs may also lead to the elimination of CyanogenMod development by the company entirely. While the community could continue to develop CyanogenMod, many of the core CyanogenMod developers at the company will no longer be paid to work on CyanogenMod. As for the pivot to apps, Recode has reported that said pivot is being led by Lior Tal, Cyanogen’s new COO.

[Update]

Cyanogen NOT pivoting to apps. We are an OS company and our mission of creating an OPEN ANDROID stands. FALSE reporting was outstanding.

— Kirt McMaster (@cyanogenone)
July 25, 2016

It turns out that Cyanogen may not be pivoting towards apps after all as Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster has taken to Twitter to clarify that Cyanogen will continue to work on OS. Only time will tell if that is truly the case.

Source:
Recode
,
Android Police
,
Ars Technica

cyanogen
cyanogenmod
layoffs


Cyanogen Inc carries out another round of employee retrenchment

342

It looks like Cyanogen Inc’s future is heading for the worse as the company’s insiders, along with external sources report another round of layoffs for its current employees. The report by Android Police further states that Cyanogen Inc will be shutting down its Seattle headquarters by the end of 2016. This new development comes after recent reports and rumors surrounding the company’s paradigm shift from focusing on the open source Android ROM to running an app development landscape.

A recent layoff dating roughly 4 months back saw 20 percent of Cyanogen’s employees receiving the axe. Sources did not confirm the number of employees getting retrenched but it is said that some employees who were about to be laid off have gotten offers to relocated to a smaller Cyanogen office at Palo Alto. The future of Cyanogen Inc’s co-founder Steve Kondik looks pretty uncertain as he was allegedly taken down from the company’s board, now assuming the role of Chief Science Officer.

A little over a month ago, Cyanogen CEO Kirk McMaster stepped down to make way for Leo Tal, a fresh face to the company. The managerial shuffle was announced on the 10th of October last month, together with the announcement of a new initiative known as the Cyanogen Modular OS program. Stay tuned as we bring you more developments and updates regarding the future of Cyanogen Inc. Meanwhile, let us know your thoughts at the comments section below!

Source:
Android Police

ceo
company
cyanogen
inc
kondik
layoff
os
retrenchment
rom
steve


Cyanogen Inc lays off more employees

263

It looks like Cyanogen Inc’s future is heading for the worse as the company’s insiders, along with external sources report another round of layoffs for its current employees. The report by Android Police further states that Cyanogen Inc will be shutting down its Seattle headquarters by the end of 2016. This new development comes after recent reports and rumors surrounding the company’s paradigm shift from focusing on the open source Android ROM to running an app development landscape.

A recent layoff dating roughly 4 months back saw 20 percent of Cyanogen’s employees receiving the axe. Sources did not confirm the number of employees getting retrenched but it is said that some employees who were about to be laid off have gotten offers to relocated to a smaller Cyanogen office at Palo Alto. The future of Cyanogen Inc’s co-founder Steve Kondik looks pretty uncertain as he was allegedly taken down from the company’s board, now assuming the role of Chief Science Officer.

A little over a month ago, Cyanogen CEO Kirk McMaster stepped down to make way for Leo Tal, a fresh face to the company. The managerial shuffle was announced on the 10th of October last month, together with the announcement of a new initiative known as the Cyanogen Modular OS program. Stay tuned as we bring you more developments and updates regarding the future of Cyanogen Inc. Meanwhile, let us know your thoughts at the comments section below!

Source:
Android Police

ceo
company
cyanogen
inc
kondik
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steve


Cyanogen OS powered Lenovo Z1 to launch in India

326

Lenovo sub brand ZUK will have its Z1 smartphone launch in India on the 10th of May, which is just next week. However, it won’t be known as the Z1 in curryland. Instead, it will carry the Lenovo branding, hence the Lenovo Z1, powered by ZUK, as seen in the image above.

The Lenovo Z1 will be running Cyanogen OS on top of Android. Cyanogen OS was roped into exclusivity with Indian OEM Micromax back in 2014, causing a dispute between them and OnePlus, whose device the OnePlus One was running Cyanogen OS, then known as CyanogenMod. Cyanogen OS is no longer exclusive to Micromax, hence the Lenovo Z1 will be the first Cyanogen OS handset to arrive to India since the OnePlus One.

Taking a look at the spec sheet, the Lenovo Z1 is sporting a 5.5-inch 1080p display, the old flagship Snapdragon 801 SoC with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The handset features a 13MP primary camera, coupled with an 8MP sharp selfie shooter on the front. The Z1 comes packed with a fingerprint sensor, alongside a 4,100mAh battery with fast charging capabilities. Are you operating Cyanogen OS on your device?

Source:
Lenovo (Facebook)

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Cyanogen shuts down; all services and build to be discontinued by the 31st of December

338

Cyanogen has had a rather miserable Christmas as the company that once wanted to “put a bullet through Google’s head” will be shutting all its services and Cyanogen-supported nightly builds by the 31st of December.

While Cyanogen as a company may be done, it appears that the team that worked on CyanogenMod may be attempting to salvage the CyanogenMod source code. According to the CyanogenMod team, the team will be using said source code to work on a new open source OS called Lineage. Nothing solid is known about this OS thus far, but many have guessed that the OS itself will be built on top of the CyanogenMod version 13 and 14.

As for the remains of Cyanogen the company, the business will be consolidating at its office in Palo Alto. Once consolidation is complete, the company will then start work on its
Modular OS project
 that involves building add-ons for Android.

Source:
International Business Times
,
Engadget

android
cyanogen
cyanogenmod
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os


CyanogenMod 14.1 builds based on Android 7.1 now available for the Nexus 5 and more

313

Although Cyanogen Inc is facing some problems with its company direction and management, allegedly laying off a second wave of employees, and former CEO Steve Kondik being left out from the company’s plans, the CyanogenMod custom ROM community remains as active as ever, working on bringing Android Nougat to numerous older devices that won’t be receiving updates from their respective manufacturers. CyanogenMod 14.1 builds have now arrived to a slew of devices which don’t deserve to be left behind.

Among the handsets that will receive their share of CyanogenMod 14.1 are the Nexus 5, Moto X Pure Edition, Nextbit Robin, OPPO R5 and R5s, OPPO R7 Plus and the LG G Pad 7 LTE model. Users of these lucky devices will be able to taste Android 7.1, on top of the customizable close to stock Android CyanogenMod software experience. However, do note that these are nightlies, hence some of the builds might still be unstable. If you are willing to take the risk, do remember to backup all user data before attempting to flash these builds.

On another note, two Xiaomi handsets are receiving CyanogenMod builds for the very first time – the Xiaomi Redmi 3 and Mi 4i. The builds that are being rolled out are of CM13 and based on Android Marshmallow, unlike CM14.1. Samsung’s four year old flagship, the Galaxy S3 has also received CM13, proving it to still be capable of running an Android version which is three years older than the device itself.

The links for the CyanogenMod builds are available via Android Police at the source link below. If this is your first time attempting on flashing custom ROM builds, do scour around for tutorials before you are confident enough of pulling it off. Till then, stay tuned!

Source:
Android Police

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Cyanogen's new Mod platform integrates Microsoft apps

322

If you haven’t heard, Cyanogen and Microsoft have announced that they will be collaborating with each other in a strategic partnership. Cyanogen, who has its own custom ROM installed on the Oneplus One, was dropped by Oneplus last year after its fiasco with Micromax. Microsoft on the other hand, has been working it in pushing out its apps to other ecosystems, especially on Android. It recently acquired Swype, the keyboard app for further development purposes.

The strategic partnership mentioned earlier involves Bing services, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Microsoft Office. It turns out Cyanogen has incorporated most of these onto its new platform known as Mod, not to be confused with Cyanogen’s other entities like Cyanogen OS and CyanogenMod. Among the notable integration in apps are Skype in the dialer app, Hyperlapse in the camera app and the use of Cortana for voice commands over the OS.

Apart from that, Cyanogen’s Mod platform also allows integration of third party apps into its OS. The company claims that this will be the start of a “Post-App Era”. It’s hard to tell where Cyanogen is heading to in the near future after this move, but time will tell. Let us know your thoughts below!

Source:
Cyanogen

app
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microsoft
mod


Cyberpunk 2077 is so buggy on PS4 that Sony is issuing refunds

1.5K

Cyberpunk 2077 is a buggy mess across all platforms – but even more so on
previous gen consoles
. Reports are bringing to light issues such as textures not loading, poor framerate even when running at 720p to 900p resolution (we’re talking around
20 FPS
 here).

Image credit: @BlackEaglesBoi

Even on PC, it’s not particularly great either – bugs are aplenty and can be quite annoying. I personally encountered a mission bug that prevented progression early on in the game. The fix only required loading an autosave, but these issues are definitely annoying.

Some bugs happen more frequent, like trash bags propelling you three feet away when you come into contact, background dialogues overlapping crucial mission scenes, and more.

It’s gotten so bad that Sony is issuing refunds to those who bought the digital versions on their PS4. Sorry, physical copy owners – at least you have a box and game manual to keep!

With that said, can we really blame
developers
 CD Projekt Red for the issues? Yes, but also no. We can argue the game was perhaps too big of a project to get done without issues; even with to get right within its near
9-year
 development time. But we also see that it is quite a game and offers something different than what we’re used to.

Image credit: Cyberpunk 2077

Furthermore, the company is known for treating their titles with love and care post launch – meaning Cyberpunk 2077 won’t stay the buggy mess it is now for long as CDPR will likely work hard on fixing all the issues.

With that said, if you haven’t gotten the game and don’t have a FOMO complex, then wait a few months before getting it – because when the game does work, it’s one heck of an open-world RPG.

cd projekt red
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Cyberpunk 2077 delayed until September 2020, and we couldn’t be happier

461

2020 is an exciting year for video games thanks to the many launches and releases that are set to take place throughout the year – one of the most anticipated title releases is Cyberpunk 2077.

Unfortunately however, developers CD Projekt Red announced that the game will be delayed until September, five months from its initial release date of April.

View this post on Instagram

We have important news regarding Cyberpunk 2077’s release date we’d like to share with you today.

A post shared by
 Cyberpunk 2077
 (@cyberpunkgame) on
Jan 16, 2020 at 10:45am PST

 This comes after Square Enix had to also push the release of the Final Fantasy VII Remake – a double whammy for the gaming community.

Image credit: GameSpot

But as a gamer who’s been in the scene for over a decade now, I share with rest who’ve also been around this long, the same sentiment of letting these big-name developers take their time with their flagship releases.

We’ve endured enough horrid game titles to make us cower in fear –
*cough Fallout 76, cough No Man’s Sky, cough The Quiet Man cough*
.

Image credit: Steam

CD Projekt Red is, of course, known for developing the award-winning The Witcher 3 – arguably one of the most well-polished games around. While Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world FPS with a non-linear storyline, full of side missions and cool things to do – which is a whole other beats compared to The Witcher 3.

So it’s understandable that CDPR wants the extra time to iron out any kinks before they let it out to the masses.With this delay, we’re hoping CDPR will make Cyberpunk 2077 just as engaging, and memorable. I sit her patiently waiting with my credit card in hand.

cd projekt red
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Cyberpunk 2077 delayed yet again until December 10

531

Mom, it’s happening again! CD Projekt Red (CDPR) has once again called a delay for the release date of their upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 game, pushing it to December 10; this is arguably the most anticipated game of 2020, so the delay is a pretty big deal to gamers.

We have important news to share with you
pic.twitter.com/qZUaD6IwmM

— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame)
October 27, 2020

The Polish developers have delayed the launch a few times before, which were met with mostly positive reception – most gamers were happy CD Projekt Red were taking their time to deliver a well-polished game (pun intended?).

@CyberpunkGame
 hi, before I book the 19th off work tomorrow can I have full confirmation the game is going to come out that day? No take backsies.
#burntbefore

#cantwait

#Cyberpunk2077

#Cyberpunk

— Penguino (@PoshPenguino)
October 26, 2020

But the latest setback seems to have ruffled more feathers than the last time – perhaps because the last promised launch date of November 19. Apparently one gamer made sure to check with the developers on Twitter if the game was really launching then, which they confirmed with aplomb; the poor gamer then put in an early day-off request to play the game; he’s now understandably upset as he’s probably wasted a good day off with no new videogame play.

Prior to this, news surfaced of CDPR requiring their staff to have
six-day
 work weeks to push the game in time – this of course led to internet folk raising their pitchforks in question of the developer’s practice; the issue was later clarified that it was a decision made by all involved, and not one forced upon CDPR’s employees.

In any case, it looks like it’ll a lot closer to Christmas, and after the launch of the
PlayStation 5
 now for the release of Cyberpunk 2077 – which could be all the better as that means holidays for most people including us in Malaysia.

cd projekt red
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Cyberpunk 2077 exclusive early bird deals gets you items like soundtracks, a physical map, badges and more

625

CD PROJEKT RED’s much-hyped AAA title
Cyberpunk 2077
 is coming this September 17 and is available for pre-order on a host of
platforms
 already – but if you haven’t put down your money on a copy yet, now’s a good time to get it with as there are limited early-bird offers when you pre-order the game.

When can I get it

Available from now until September 7, the deal is available for both consoles and the PC, in physical retail form as well as digital format for the PC.

What do I get?

The Standard Edition retail copy of Cyberpunk 2077 (RM219) gets you the following goodies:

Case with game code and soundtrack CDs (Game install will be on GOG.com)

Reversible cover

World compendium containing game lore and setting

Postcards from the in-game world ‘Night City’

Map of Night City

Stickers

Metal key chain

Gangs of Cyberpunk 2077 woven badges

The Standard Edition copy of the game for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (RM259) will contain the same items except the game will come in discs, and there will be no game soundtrack CD or metal key chain.

Image credit: Cyberpunk 2077

Regardless of which version you get, these are the
guaranteed
 digital items that come with your game:

Game soundtrack

Art booklet

Cyberpunk 2077 sourcebook

Wallpapers for desktop and mobile

What is Cyberpunk 2077?

We’ve seen a bit of Cyberpunk 2077 already and we can expect an expansive open-world map split into three environments housing inhabitants of different socio-economic groups. Your character is not locked into a class, but rather you’re free to experiment with different battle styles. The game is touted to be a treasure trove of side missions, like CD PROJEKT RED’s award-
winning
 The Witcher 3.

Visit
Epicsoft
 Asia’s (regional distributor) website
here
 to make your purchase.

cd projekt red
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Cyberpunk 2077 is finally ready to play!

944

Cyberpunk 2077 is now available to play on Steam, GOG – the latter for those who pre-ordered the digital copies from its regional distributor
EpicSoft
 Asia
– and the PlayStation 4.

Preload gog

Some of you may have already pre-
loaded
 the game but were
greeted
 with Johnny
Silverhand
  telling you to “go back to sleep, it’s not December 10 yet”. Well, it finally is December 10 and you can finally get your long-awaited, lovingly-crafted open world RPG adventure going.

If you’ve been living under a rock, Cyberpunk 2077 is the latest title developed by CD Projekt Red, the same folks who were lauded (and rightly so) for their work on The Witcher 3. The group’s reputation for attention to detail and story-telling has built quite a ridiculous hype among who’re familiar with The Witcher, and due to these expectations, the company had to delay the game several times in order to get the game right.

Early
reviews
 by multiple sources seem to be in tune regarding pre-launch patch bugs that have somewhat become synonymous with adventurous titles like Cyberpunk 2077 – broken quests, NPCs glitching out, multiple dialogues overlapping, and more. There will be a day-one patch which should resolve some of the problems, but if you’re going to play this today, remember not to put the game on a
pedestal
 from the get-go – that’s how nice things get ruined.

Like
The
 Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 will slowly, but surely, get the polish its players deserve. If you haven’t bought the game, you can do so on
Steam
,
GOG
, and
PlayStation Store
.

cd projekt red
cyberpunk 2077
cyberpunk 2077 ps4
gaming
PS5
The Witcher 3


Cyberpunk 2077: Larger save files may get corrupted

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Cyberpunk 2077 is not off to a great start; the game has been so buggy that developer CD Projekt has withdrawn the game from the PlayStation Store. However, a new issue has surfaced — many players whose save files are above 8MB complained that the files are now corrupted.

Cyberpunk 2077 players are flooding the internet with complains

PSA: [STEAM/PC] crossing about 6 mb in your save files will cause your game to take 30 seconds to 1 minute to load. Crossing 8 mb will cause your game file to corrupt and not be able to load at all. DO NOT CRAFT TO MAKE MONEY
 from
r/cyberpunkgame

Users have been bringing up this issue on both Reddit and CD Projekt’s forum; one Reddit user said that crossing the 6MB mark will cost the game to take longer load while crossing the 8MB limit will cost the game to corrupt — those on the
forum
 also spoke of the same issue. Unfortunately, there is no solution yet as
GOG.COM’s support centre
 asks Cyberpunk players to “keep a lower amount of items and crafting materials” as these are the things that increases the save file size.

Once your save file is damaged, there’s no turning back

Image credit: GOG.COM

Players are also told that the damaged file cannot be recovered and to use an older save file instead. To make it worse, even if the future patch increases the save file size limit, corrupted files will remain the same and cannot be retrieved. If you’re one of the unlucky ones, you should see the image above when your file is corrupted.

CD Projekt has to overcome numerous hurdles

This is only one of the many problems concerning the game. CD Projekt may be sued by its investors for “misleading information.” In addition to that, The New York Times reported that the company’s stock has reduced by 41% and as we’ve heard recently, Sony and Microsoft are offering refunds to those who are dissatisfied with the game.

cyberpunk 2077


Cyberview Minecraft Camp a big hit among kids

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You have heard how Microsoft has increased the interest of programming by introducing it to children. Now, Cyberview, the Technology Hub Enabler behind the success of Cyberjaya, together with its partner Terato Tech, has collaborated with Microsoft to introduce the world of programming with its Cyberview Minecraft Camp 2015. The camp was held for two days at the Pentagon Suite, Wisma Suria Cyberjaya, and had 28 participants aged between 8-12 taking part in this fun learning experience.

As part of Microsoft’s Hour of Code global campaign, Cyberview Minecraft Camp was aimed to use a game loved by kids, to teach them how to code in order to spark creativity in the next generation of innovators in a fun and easy learning process.

Since the game teaches problem-solving and basic coding skills, in addition to teamwork as they navigate, mine, craft and explore in a 2-D Minecraft world, the children learn programming fundamentals by plugging together blocks to complete actions and generate computer code.

Cyberview believes in having the right mixture of talents to drive a Tech Hub.
CLL – Talent was initiated to nurture and empower these creative young minds to explore their potential and follow their passion, and develop the next generation of talents. Past programmes organised by Cyberview under the same umbrella include the Cyberjaya Lego Robotics educational classes as well as the Cyberjaya Robo Race 2015, an open bot community platform to encourage the coming together of like-minded people under the line of robotics
.

coding
cyberjaya
cyberview
education
hourofcode
minecraft
minecraftcamp
teratotech


D-Link COVR C1203 Review: Everyone’s First Mesh Router System

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Mesh routers have become popular for large homes due to its simplicity and form factor, it is particularly useful if your entire household depend on WiFi to get access to the Internet, while requiring an extensive coverage to enjoy the best of your Internet connection. D-Link has kindly passed us the COVR-C1203 for our review, a stylish looking entry-level mesh system that costs RM799, which isn’t cheap as compared to a standard AC1200 router, but most importantly, can it fix WiFi coverage woes?

Hardware and Design

While some of my friends thought that the router’s design looks a little weird, I personally like how D-Link makes it easily recognizable from its competitors with a swapable plastic plate, our review unit comes fitted with the gold plate and D-Link has kindly provided two additional blue plates in the package.

Like other mesh systems, the COVR-C1203 comes with one main node that connects to your Internet gateway supported by two other nodes. I like the fact that the nodes are powered by a single USB-C cable over a 5V3A output, which you can technically use any USB adapters that support such output and hook up your own USB-C cable if you want to.

I’m not a fan of the two-pin European adapter that D-Link provides out of the box, as it blocks other socket outlets if I plug it into a multi-gang socket or a dedicated power outlet, but they are thankfully long enough that you won’t need an extension.

Every node comes with two Gigabit LAN ports at the back, which the main A point has one used for WAN connection and the other for LAN connection, the B and C node’s LAN ports can be used for connecting wired devices, which is convenient. Finally, there’s a WPS button on every node so that you don’t need to go all the way to the main node if you want to easily connect your wireless devices.

Setup and Software

Routers have become extremely easy to setup all thanks to the convenience of their respective companion apps. The D-Link COVR-C1203 uses the D-Link WiFi app that is available for Android and iOS devices, setting it up was a breeze as it guides you through the steps of setting up the nodes properly, the two nodes automatically connect to the Point A node once the setup is successful. Otherwise, you can also use the conventional way by using your computer’s web browser, which is in fact faster and straightforward if you ask me.

The COVR-C1203’s management software is simple and straightforward; the dashboard shows your network infrastructure and the signal strength of the two supporting nodes. Like other D-Link routers, you can set parental controls on a client on the dashboard.

Back then when I reviewed the higher end DIR-895L, I complained the lack of certain configuration on the router’s management software and unfortunately, the COVR-C1203’s software is even more limited.

For instance, you are not able to configure both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks separately, so it is up to the router to decide the frequency your device should be connected to, which sucks because in most cases it keeps your device connected to the 2.4GHz band and that limits your connection speed.

DDNS service is available, which you can utilize D-Link’s free DDNS service to set a hostname to easily connect remotely back to your home network for port forwarding purposes, the software unfortunately lacks VPN Server functionality, which is a shame considering routers at that price range already have the feature built-in, but it isn’t a deal breaker.

Performance

As mesh routers are products focused on extending coverage from the main node, data transfer can differ from devices to devices, even when standing at the same spot. The D-Link COVR-C1203 is definitely capable of delivering optimal coverage on my 3200 sq. ft home, using the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, I managed to record 95Mbps of download speed on my 100Mbps Unifi connection with a signal strength of -55dBm (less dBm means better signal strength).

Using a free WiFi Analyzer app, I realized that the router did a pretty good job of switching between 2.4GHz and 5GHz as I move around different spots in my house, though oddly there has been a couple of times that the WiFi network would suddenly disconnect momentarily when I’m connected at the same spot for more than an hour, otherwise in most cases I would be able to achieve around 40-50Mbps of download speed on dead spots, it is an obvious improvement from having WiFi signals broadcasted single handedly by my very own TP-Link Archer C5400 router.

As for fixed LAN connection, the supporting nodes can keep up to its maximum download speed with a reasonably fast 6-7ms ping response when tested using Speedtest.net, despite being a slight delay with my usual 2-3ms ping when connected directly to my original router.

Verdict

The D-Link COVR-C1203 is a good mesh router to start off if you are on a budget to extend your home’s WiFi network coverage, but you’ll be trading off some networking features such as VPN Server and separate network frequency configuration, it also cannot serve as a coverage extender to any of the company’s existing routers. At RM799, there’s absolutely no excuse not to invest in one if you own a huge home that requires good WiFi coverage, though personally I won’t be depending on this for heavy file transfers, but at least it does help to keep my WiFi connection stay alive wherever I am in the house.

The Good

Good automatic band switching performance

Powered using USB-C

Swappable color plates for easy identification

Good for Internet connections below 100Mbps

The Not so Good

Occasional disconnects

Limited router software features

covr c1203
dlink
dlink covr
mesh router
network
review


D-Link DCS-8000LH WiFi Camera Review: Small and Handsome

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While D-Link is most well-known for its networking products, the company has been in the WiFi surveillance camera game way before Chinese companies like  Xiaomi’s Mijia and Xiaoyi. Therefore, D-Link’s DCS-8000LH is made to challenge that segment of WiFi cameras, as discrete as it looks, it promises a whole lot of things out of the box – 720P HD streaming, cloud recording, integration with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. For under RM200, is this little guy worth investing for securing your home discretely or watch out for your little ones when you are away? We find out.

Design and Hardware

If you have found most WiFi cameras difficult to hide away, you will be very satisfied with the DCS-8000LH’s small tube sized form factor, it almost looks like a mouth freshener spray if you put it up on a bookshelf, do a little bit of cable management and no one will recognize it as a camera if they don’t view it up close.

In terms of power, the DCS-8000LH uses a MicroUSB port that requires a 5V1A power output, which can be helpful as you can easily use a power bank to power it up, especially if you would like to set up a temporary surveillance area that doesn’t have a power socket. If not, the included power brick is compact enough to not block other power outlets.

D-Link has generously included a mount bracket inside the box if you want the camera to be hung on to the wall or ceiling, making this a very versatile camera to setup.

While it would seem like there’s almost no fault with the DCS-8000LH’s hardware, one thing that is missing is a MicroSD card slot, which is quite a bummer as you will not be able to record footage on a physical medium if you don’t have an Internet connection.

Software and User Experience

Setting up the DCS-8000LH is effortless, you will first need to power it up, download the free mydlink app on your iPhone or Android device, scan the QR code attached to the quick start guide after launching the app, follow the guide and name your camera, then it’s done.

The mydlink app should feel familiar to those who have been using D-Link’s smart home products, the app features a user-friendly dashboard that shows your connected devices, shortcuts to automation and one tap actions. For automation, you can set the camera to automatically record when a motion or sound is detected, a push notification can also be sent if the event happens.

The One-Tap feature can be quite useful if you have multiple D-Link devices at home, you can configure up to six profile and have each of them run different automation sequences with just a single tap at the dashboard, it also allows you to enable and disable the camera’s Privacy Mode. In my case, I set it to start recording when I tap the “Away” mode.

Unlike old D-Link IP cameras, there is no web interface so everything you do has to be on the app itself, which is good as it prevents any unauthorized access should your home network is used by guests.

When it comes to smart home automation, I was disappointed that the feature is only limited to show the surveillance footage your TV, rather than telling it to disable privacy mode or set it to any automation mode that you have configured in the mydlink app, so you have to pretty much do everything on the app rather than asking Google or Alexa to do it for you.

D-Link offers a free trial period of its cloud recording feature with up to three cameras and one day of cloud storage, while I appreciate the fact that it merely records certain moments when an event is being triggered, I was disappointed that there wasn’t a way to store the footage on the cloud permanently.

Depending on the cloud storage plan you choose, you will only be able to store your footages up to 30 days from the day it was recorded, you also can’t trigger video recording manually like you do on a standard surveillance camera, not unless you save it to your smartphone.

Image and Video Recording Quality

As long as your home Internet connection has a decent upload speed of 5 Mbps, you shouldn’t experience any issues connecting back over a 4G connection. Even though the DCS-8000LH isn’t able to store footage into a physical medium, you can still record and save manually on to your phone.

Picture quality on the DCS-8000LH is reasonably good for a 720P sensor, its not ultra-sharp but it will do well enough for recognizing a face properly from a 10ft distance, the camera also has an infrared sensor that helps shooting in total darkness, the camera’s built-in microphone sensitivity is good and can easily pick up sound 10 feet away.

Verdict

D-Link’s problem with its products hasn’t always been its hardware, the DCS-8000LH is a great product but letdown by bad software, where it hypes too much with home assistant integration but only offers one single function, and a cloud storage service merely offer days instead GB of storage for my videos.

If you are fine by all that limitation and merely want a camera that you can simply access while you are away from home, then you won’t go wrong with the DCS-8000LH, it retails officially for RM199 but some dealers are already offering as low as RM153 on Lazada.

The Good

Affordable

Flexible setup with wall mount

Discrete design

MicroUSB powered

Clear sound and good quality video recording

The Not so Good

No MicroSD card slot

D-Link cloud storage service only stores videos for days

Limited home assistant features

d-link
dcs-8000lh
dcs-8000lh review


D-Link DCS-8525LH WiFi Camera Review: Superb Video Surveillance Quality

847

360-degree IP cameras are usually expensive investments, but you can’t deny that they are darn useful when it comes to monitoring your home surroundings. For under RM400, the D-Link DCS-8525LH aims to keep your home safe and monitored with its ability to tilt and pan, it’s a badass looking camera that with a large sensor that captures Full HD surveillance footage, coupled with a number of IR sensors (10 of them to be exact) and a light sensor, it is ready to capture footage clearly even in total darkness.

The DCS-8525LH is the flagship of D-Link’s WiFi camera portfolio, it features a rather huge footprint that you can’t easily hide it away, however it’s got a solid build quality and connectivity features are not compromised. For instance, it has an external antenna for better signals, a LAN port for fixed line connectivity if you prefer a reliable connection, and a MicroSD card slot for storing surveillance footages locally.

In terms of installation, the DCS-8525LH can be mounted on a camera tripod or wall with the provided bracket, power is supplied through a MicroUSB port over a 10W or 5V2A output, a common standard that can be powered by any standard smartphone chargers or power banks out there.

Like the recent DCS-8000LH we reviewed, the DCS-8525LH also uses the mydlink app for setting everything up, so it is a similar process of scanning the QR code on the quick start guide and go through the setup wizard, there is also no web interface access so you can be rest assured that your WiFi connected guests won’t be able to logon to your camera through their web browser.

Operating the DCS-8525LH is straightforward, as you can either tap or swipe to change the camera’s direction, though I wished it could respond slightly faster, the controls have never failed on me.

What you will probably be most impressed is the camera’s image quality, in fact if not the best it is one of the best image quality that I have ever seen on a surveillance camera, the details are sharp and even in our brightly lit office, the footage doesn’t look over-exposed like some cameras do.
Fun fact, the DCS-8525LH has a built-in speaker at the base, which there was once I used it to instruct my colleague to help do something instead of calling back to the office, the speaker is really loud, and the entire office thought the place was haunted when they realized my voice was coming out nowhere. To add on, the built-in microphone was able to pick up my colleague’s conversation without issues from 20ft away, so yeah, it’s pretty awesome.

While I’m excited for most of the things on the camera, I wasn’t impressed with D-Link’s cloud storage service as it merely offers days of storage, you also cannot record footage to both the MicroSD card and cloud storage at the same time, hence if the footage is gone on the cloud you won’t be able to retrieve them from the MicroSD card. Like the DCS-8000LH, it supports Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and IFTTT integration but you can only use them to view your footage on the TV.

Ultimately, no WiFi camera is perfect but D-Link’s DCS-8525LH is one of the very best 360-degree camera that you can buy to monitor and secure your home, and that is if you aren’t looking into 24-hour video recording. For what it is capable of, RM399 is a fair asking price tag, but considering Xiaomi’s Mijia Dome Camera and Xiaoyi’s 360 Degree Camera costs almost half the price for the same features and a much smaller footprint, D-Link has a tough road ahead to win consumers over, and its cloud storage service isn’t going to save the DCS-8525LH.

The Good

Excellent 1080p video recording quality

Good speaker and microphone

MicroSD card for storage

Powered using a MicroUSB port

The Not so Good

Huge size

Pricing not competitive

Cloud storage service could be better

dcs-8525lh
dlink
ip camera
wifi camera


The D-Link DIR-878 is an affordable AC1900 router with MU-MIMO technology

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Its hard to come by decent wireless routers for less than RM700, especially when your household or SOHO does heavy file transfers within the network, you really need one that could handle the network load. D-Link has just announced the availability of the DIR-878 wireless router, which supports AC1900 transfer speeds with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz combined and has a 3×3 MU-MIMO antenna configuration, which helps extend coverage in large households and better wireless transfer speeds in the network.

As usual with most wireless routers, the DIR-878 features four gigabit LAN ports and one gigabit WAN port at the back. Since this is an affordable router, the DIR-878 lacks USB ports which you can’t share storage devices or printers over the network, there’s also no mention of it supporting remote VPN connections like certain routers do, however for homes that merely requires great wireless coverage and good data transfer speeds, the DIR-878 should be capable of delivering that purpose without any issues.

In terms of pricing and availability, the D-Link DIR-878 is already available beginning this month at the price of RM609, do check it out over at your local PC resellers for more details.

d-link
dir-878
dir-878 malaysia price


D-Link DIR-895L AC5300 Wireless Router Review: Consistent in Performance

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You might have a wireless router that is capable of driving that fast internet connection, however when there’s a huge number of connected devices in your network environment, your network gets congested and hence causing an unexpected slow down on your internet connection, this is what happened to our office recently, our TIME 300 Mbps internet connection went down to 220 Mbps simply because there were more than 30 devices connected on both wired and wireless on our ASUS RT-AC68U router. In our time of distress, D-Link was kind enough to provide us a unit of their flagship DIR-895L wireless router, which the company claims that it is the ultimate router for gaming and streaming, let’s find out how well it works for us after two weeks.

Design and Hardware

D-Link has intended the DIR-895L to not only serve as a typical strong signal wireless router, hence to be able to handle heavy network loads such as video streaming and gaming for multiple devices, the router needs to come with some serious power, apart from being able to broadcast two 5GHz bands and one 2.4GHz band, it has a dual core Broadcomm BCM4709C0 1.4GHz processor with 256MB of RAM to process all that heavy traffic and supports 4 simultaneous data streams.

Though I’ve seen countless wireless routers in my lifetime, most of them looked squarish, ugly and cool, but the DIR-895L is a whole different story, in fact I would call it the most beautiful and coolest wireless router ever produced, I call it either a “alien-like”, “stingray like” or simply refer it to as a triangular design, the router has a glossy red paint coated over it with holes at the back to dissipate internal heat.

DIR-895L compared to an iPad Pro 10.5.

While I have to admit that this router has earned a spot in my heart for its design alone, it is going to be a problem for some who have tight spaces for their routers, but thankfully you still have the option of mounting the router to the wall with its bottom mounting points.

The white LED status indicators on the router look pretty cool for where they are placed at, however they don’t show activity from the LAN and WAN ports, which is really inconvenient if you were to troubleshoot cable connectivity issues.

Like most standard WiFi routers, you are getting four gigabit Ethernet ports and one gigabit WAN port for wired connectivity, there’s also a USB 3.0 port for sharing your storage and a USB 2.0 port for sharing you printer across the network, but sadly none of the USB ports support a USB modem, though most folks won’t buy this router for the sake of using mobile broadband at their homes, such functionality should be included should the need arises, considering that this is a high end router, there are users who require a failover internet connection.

Probably the most surprising and underutilized feature would be the dedicated switch to turn the router into an extender, which most people would have just bought an extender or home plug for that purpose with a much lower price tag.

User Interface and Features

It is great to see D-Link finally moving away from the old dated orange themed user interface, the new router management software is based on Linux OS and has very straightforward navigation, after logging in you will be presented with a dashboard that shows a diagram of how your Internet is connected, click on each of the icons and it will show relevant information such as your IP address, connected clients and USB devices. One thing I like here is that you can manage the connected clients, which you can simply click on them to enable parental controls and reserve their IP addresses.
D-Link has literally modernized and simplified most of the router’s configuration, and that’s a pretty good thing for those who aren’t familiar with router software, features have their own dedicated page and most importantly, they aren’t complicated to understand. However, I somehow find certain features to be too simple for such an advanced router, take parental controls for instance, I have no idea why it has to be separated from the Website/URL filter feature, in fact it makes things a lot more complicated for the user.

Another example would be the router’s traffic monitoring feature in a page called ‘Statistics’ on the Management tab, while it does show you the throughput of each connection interface, there is now way to identify which client using the most traffic, and to be able to limit bandwidth for a client, you will be required to configure it via the QoS Engine feature. Therefore, you won’t have any idea on what devices is causing your network to be slow when it happens.

There aren’t exactly any gaming centric features on the DIR895L, if you were to compare to routers like the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AC5300. Nonetheless, the router does exceptionally well in distributing bandwidth across the network, port forwarding can be achieved pretty easily, and if you want to access your home network remotely, D-Link does provide a free DDNS service and uses the L2TP over IPSEC protocol, which is simple yet more secure over PPTP.

Like other D-Link routers, the DIR-895L uses the same myDlink SharePort software to access your connected storage on the network, the good thing here is that there’s a dedicated page and user access to it, and along with the free smartphone app, you will be able to access your files remotely, which makes it pretty useful and simple cloud storage solution.

Benchmark

For our router benchmark, we used a D-Link DWA-192 wireless adapter that is able to achieve up to 1300Mbps of transfer speed when connected to the 5GHz network, we perform a data transfer between a Synology DS216+ II NAS and a WD My Passport hard drive connected directly to the router’s USB 3.0 port. Also, we used an iPad Pro 10.5 to perform a speed test of our TIME 300Mbps internet connection using the Speedtest.NET app. Based on the diagram above, we have picked three locations in our 1000sf studio office to perform the wireless test, we also have 29 connected wired and wireless clients.

LAN Throughput Test

The D-Link DIR-895L did very decently in both reading from the NAS and USB hard drive, though it slopped a little in writing back to the USB hard drive. During our test, five active users were transferring files between PCs, while one user was accessing the files in the NAS for video editing purposes.

NAS Wireless Data Transfer

As you can see, the DIR-895L outperforms the TP-Link Archer C5400 in most tests, the C5400 has the same processor and amount of RAM as the DIR-895L, however with a different antenna setup. If we take a look at the 2.4 GHz connection at Location B, the DIR-895L managed to broadcast the 40 MHz channel properly to our wireless adapter, which explains the huge speed difference between the C5400.

USB 3.0 Hard Drive Wireless Data Transfer

Don’t expect USB hard drives to have the same performance as if plugged directly into a PC’s USB port, in most cases both the D-Link DIR-895L and TP-Link Archer C5400 have fairly close read speeds, the DIR-895L loses out in writing performance, the same case we have in the LAN throughput test.

Internet Connection Speed Test (TIME 300 Mbps, tested with iPad Pro 10.5)

Using the Speedtest.NET app and connected to TIME’s testing server, the TP-Link Archer C5400 manages to produce better speeds in both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless connections. Nonetheless, both routers managed to hit the optimal speeds on the 5 GHz connection.

Verdict

The D-Link DIR-895L is an extremely powerful router that could easily handle a busy small office or household network with its great wireless performance, coupled with a straightforward software and configuration that doesn’t overwhelm a user, this is a great router that we have no problems recommending if a consistent data transfer performance is what matters to you the most. However, for the more advanced users, you might just want to lower your expectations on the router’s software as it doesn’t offer a lot of other advanced features for you to tinker around. The D-Link DIR-895L retails for RM1,799, which isn’t cheap for an AC5300 router, but let’s look at the bright side of things, this is a cool looking router for your home and office.

The Good

Cool and futuristic hardware design

Decent wireless coverage and performance

Simple software and configuration

The Not so Good

No LED indicators for LAN ports

USB ports doesn’t support USB modem

Router configuration not centralized

Price could be lower

d-link
d-link dir-895l malaysia
d-link malaysia
dir-895l review
dir-895l review malaysia
time 300 mbps
time internet