Hold onto your hats, Plex users: A huge Plex Pass price hike is incoming, along with big changes for Plex Media Server users who want to stream their content remotely.  After holding the line in terms of price for 10 years, a lifetime Plex Pass—a subscription that offers such features as DVR functionality, media downloads, hardware video transcoding, commercial skipping, and other perks—will soon cost $249.99, more than double the current price of $119.99.  Monthly and annual Plex Pass subscriptions are getting price hikes too, although their increases aren’t quite as steep as the lifetime options. Monthly Plex Passes will soon cost $6.99 a month, up from $4.99/month, while an annual Plex Pass will cost $69.99 a year, up from $39.99/year.  Those price changes will go into effect April 29, 2025, a little more than a month from now. So if you want to snag a lifetime Plex Pass at the current $119.99 price, you’d better get to it. There’s more news, too, and Plex Media Server users aren’t going to like it.  Once the new Plex Pass prices kick in, remote streaming of content in personal Plex media libraries won’t be free anymore. That means if you want to stream your Plex Media Server content outside your home—or, crucially, if you want to stream media from another Plex Media Server user who doesn’t have a Plex Pass—you’ll need to pay up.  As part of the big change, Plex is serving up a new, cheaper way to stream personal Plex library content on remote networks.   For $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year, the Remote Watch Pass will let you stream your own Plex Media Server files remotely, or stream from someone else’s Plex media library who doesn’t have their own Plex Pass or Remote Watch Pass. Of course, the Remote Watch Pass strips away other Plex Pass benefits, such as DVR functionality and downloads.  The changes to remote streaming only apply to the upcoming “new experience” Plex apps, not the current (but soon to be deprecated) apps. We’re expecting Plex to make the switch to the new apps within the next few months, and Plex is reserving the right to eventually drop free remote streaming from its older apps, too. Plex also noted that the remote streaming changes apply only to “movie/TV/video” media, not to music or photos.  The decision to move personal media streaming behind a paywall comes on the heels of Plex’s announcement that it was dropping “watch together” functionality from its “new experience” apps. While remote Plex Media Server streaming is going behind a paywall, a formerly paid Plex feature is about to be free. Plex’s revamped Android and iOS apps will no longer require a Plex Pass or a one-time $4.99 fee to remove playback restrictions.   In its announcement, Plex said it’s hiking its prices to “keep up with rising costs” and “to ensure both Plex Pass and our support for personal media continue to thrive.”  The latest changes to the Plex Pass are easily the biggest since the subscription program was rolled out 10 years ago.  Among the features available with a Plex Pass subscription include using your Plex server as a DVR for over-the-air TV broadcasts, downloading Plex Media Server content for offline playback, the ability to use local hardware for HD and 4K video transcoding, ad skipping for recorded TV, real-time lyrics for tunes, and a dedicated app for monitoring your Plex server activity and performance. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Sharp, bright display Enjoyable keyboard Respectable CPU performance Long battery life Cons Drab design IPS display can’t match OLED in contrast or color Mediocre integrated graphics performance Our Verdict The Acer Swift Go 14 AI is a competent Snapdragon-powered laptop with long battery life, but it doesn’t stand out from the crowd. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips turned heads in 2024 thanks to their combination of great CPU performance and battery life. However, as the months have passed, they’ve become important for another reason: they’ve put serious downward pressure on the pricing of budget and mid-range laptops.  The Acer Swift Go 14 AI is a solid Qualcomm-powered laptop with a good mix of performance and battery life. However, it faces competitors that offer more for less. Acer Swift Go 14 AI: Specs and features The Acer Swift Go 14 AI has a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus processor, specifically the X1P-42-100. It also has 16GB of RAM and 1TB of solid-state storage—a respectable but typical, configuration for a laptop priced around $1,000. Model number: SFG14-01-X006 CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus (X1P-42-100) Memory: 16GB LPDDR5x-8448 Graphics/GPU: Qualcomm Adreno  NPU: Qualcomm NPU up to 45 TOPS Display: 14.5-inch 2560×1600 120Hz IPS Storage: 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD Webcam: 1440p 30fps camera with physical privacy shutter, dual array microphone Connectivity: 2x USB-C 4 with DisplayPort and USB Power Delivery, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x 3.5mm combo audio jack Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Biometrics: Fingerprint reader in power button Battery capacity: 75 watt-hours Dimensions: 12.6 x 8.9 x 0.7 inches Weight: 2.91 pounds Operating System: Windows 11 Home Extra features: USB-C to HDMI adapter Price: $999 MSRP from Acer, roughly $837 retail at Best Buy Acer lists the laptop at $999, which is a bit much for what the laptop offers. However, the laptop is often discounted at Best Buy and more competitive when sold for around $850 or less. The Acer Swift Go 14 AI is currently available in just one configuration, which is the model I reviewed.   The Acer Swift Go 14 AI is a competent mid-range laptop. It benefits from excellent battery life, an enjoyable keyboard, and a bright, high-resolution IPS display.  Acer Swift Go 14 AI: Design and build quality IDG / Matthew Smith The Acer Swift Go 14 AI follows the company’s usual tactic of delivering a simple, competent, but generic chassis that doesn’t impress or offend.  It has a grayish-silver exterior that’s attractive at a glance, and the materials provide a nice metallic luster that will at times catch the light in a room. Acer’s branding is minimal as well with only two small Acer logos on the display lid. However, the laptop’s design is a bit boxy and old-fashioned (though it’s not too thick at roughly 0.7 inches) and the materials used feel a bit thin. The display lid shows no flex when opening or closing the laptop, but the lower chassis wavers slightly when typing or picking up the laptop from a corner. The design is best described as functional. It does the job, but it doesn’t make an impression.  Acer Swift Go 14 AI: Keyboard, trackpad IDG / Matthew Smith A spacious keyboard spans the Acer Swift Go 14 AI’s interior. It provides well-sized keys with only some left-side keys such as Tab, Caps Lock, and Shift, noticeably smaller than normal. Even so, they remain large enough that I didn’t have to adjust my muscle memory.  Key travel is good and keys activate with an enjoyable spring and slight tactile click. The typing experience isn’t incredible, but it’s better than budget competitors like the Dell Inspiron 14 and Lenovo IdeaPad 5x.   The touchpad is less impressive, but fine. It measures about five inches wide and three inches deep, which is the typical touchpad size for a 14-inch Windows laptop. It’s responsive, multi-touch gestures work well and the touchpad surface provides a physical click for right and left-click actions (though tap-to-click also works). However, most laptops in this category offer a nearly identical touchpad experience.  Acer Swift Go 14 AI: Display, audio IDG / Matthew Smith Acer ships the Swift Go 14 AI with a 14.5-inch IPS display with a native resolution of 2560×1600 and a refresh rate up to 120Hz.  Choosing an IPS display instead of an OLED display puts the Swift Go 14 AI at a disadvantage in image quality next to competitors like the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED. IPS has worse contrast and less vibrant color than OLED, which causes the display to look less dynamic and realistic.  But that’s not to say the Swift Go 14 AI’s display is bad or even mediocre. It’s a competent, sharp, and colorful IPS screen that generally looks good even if it can’t match OLED. The Acer’s display is bright and has an anti-glare finish that makes the display more comfortable to view in a bright environment than competitive laptops with an OLED display.  Whether the Swift Go 14 AI’s display makes sense will depend on your needs. A competitor with OLED will have better image quality in games and movies. However, the Swift Go 14 AI’s display has benefits in productivity and portability. Audio quality isn’t a strength of the Swift Go 14. It has downward-firing speakers that may sound muffled, depending on the surface the laptop is placed on. They’re not loud and lack low-end, which leads to muddy and often harsh sound. The speakers are fine for podcasts and most YouTube videos, but I wouldn’t recommend them for music, games, or movies.  Acer Swift Go 14 AI: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The Acer Swift Go 14 AI ships with a 1440p webcam and dual-array microphone. Webcam resolutions up to 1440p aren’t hard to find in 2025, but if you’re coming from a slightly older laptop or comparing against a 1080p or 720p webcam, the Swift Go 14 AI’s camera will feel like a huge upgrade. It’s sharp and colorful. I found the dual-array microphone serviceable, too. It easily picked up my voice even when I spoke softly but also did a good job rejecting repetitive background noise. The audio quality is still hollow and distant, as typical for such microphones, but it’s fine for Microsoft Teams or Google Meet.  Biometric login is provided by a fingerprint reader in the power button. I prefer facial recognition, but the fingerprint reader does the job. It works reliably in most situations but will be fooled if your fingertip is slightly damp or dirty (so don’t swig a Coke before you log in).   Acer Swift Go 14 AI: Connectivity IDG / Matthew Smith A pair of USB-C 4 ports with DisplayPort and USB Power Delivery provide the bulk of the Acer Swift Go 14 AI’s connectivity. These ports are useful not only for data connections but are also used to charge the laptop and can connect to external displays. Both USB-C are on the left side, so keep that in mind if you want to connect a USB-C hub or dongle.  Acer also provides a pair of USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports and a 3.5mm audio jack. The laptop lacks Ethernet and HDMI-out though, in the second case, Acer side-steps the lack of HDMI by including a USB-C to HDMI adapter in the box. Wireless connectivity is good, as the laptop supports both Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. These are the latest versions of each standard. I didn’t experience wireless connectivity issues in my time with the laptop. Acer Swift Go 14 AI: Performance The Acer Swift Go AI has a Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 chip, which sits at the bottom of the Snapdragon X Plus line and is the second least performant Snapdragon X Plus chip overall. It has eight cores and a maximum single-core clock of 3.4GHz. The chip is paired with 16GB of LPDDR5x 8448 MT/s memory and 1TB of M.2 PCIe 4.0 solid state storage.  IDG / Matthew Smith The Acer Swift Go 14 AI gets off to a reasonable start in Cinebench R24, though it depends on your perspective. It performs well among price-competitive systems and looks particularly good when compared to Intel Core Ultra chips, which fail to keep up in this heavily multi-threaded CPU benchmark. However, the Asus Zenbook S 15 underscores a problem the Swift Go 14 faces. That model has a better Snapdragon X Elite chip with 12 cores and the four extra cores provide a significant upgrade.  That’s a problem for the Swift Go 14 because some laptops with the Snapdragon X Elite sell for as little as $800. IDG / Matthew Smith CPU core count isn’t the only way Qualcomm downgrades the Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 relative to its more capable siblings. It also turns down the IGP performance with a quoted specification of 1.7 TFLOPs, down from 4.6 TFLOPs in the best Snapdragon X Elite chips. Unfortunately, that translates to a big decrease in GPU performance. The Acer Swift Go 14 AI scored just 16,179 in 3DMark Night Raid. That’s a large decrease from the Asus Zenbook S 15, which has a Snapdragon X Elite chip and scored 25,917. The Asus Vivobook S 14 with Intel Arc 140V graphics is over twice as quick in this benchmark. This is the Acer Swift Go 14 AI’s biggest weakness and it’s particularly weak against Intel-powered alternatives, as most in this price bracket will indeed have Intel Arc 130V or Arc 140V graphics. Put simply, I wouldn’t recommend the Swift Go 14 AI if you want to play recent 3D games or accelerate 3D productivity software.   Acer Swift Go 14 AI: Battery life The Acer Swift Go 14 AI has a sizable 75 watt-hour battery. That’s towards the upper end of battery size for a 14-inch laptop. The large battery and efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon boost the laptop’s battery life to more than 19 hours in our standard battery test, which loops a 4K file of the short film Tears of Steel. IDG / Matthew Smith As the graph shows, the Swift Go 14 AI’s battery life doesn’t set records, but it does come in towards the high end of what’s typical for modern Windows laptops. I also saw great battery life in my day-to-day work, which includes a lot of time spent in Microsoft Word, Affinity Photo 2, and a web browser. Using the laptop for four hours drained the battery by about 30 percent. The laptop’s low power consumption means it only requires a 65-watt charger and the charger that ships with the laptop is quite small. Even so, you might feel comfortable leaving the charger at home. The Swift Go 14 AI charges over USB-C, so a wide variety of chargers can power it, including those that provide less than 65 watts (though charging will be slow and might not happen at all when the laptop is in use).  Acer Swift Go 14 AI: Conclusion The Acer Swift Go 14 AI is a competent mid-range laptop. It benefits from excellent battery life, an enjoyable keyboard, and a bright, high-resolution IPS display.  However, the Swift Go 14 AI’s value is hampered by the specific Snapdragon X Plus and the laptop’s $999 MSRP. While the chip is a fine performer in CPU tests, frequent discounts on laptops with Snapdragon X Elite chips like the Asus Vivobook S 15 make it difficult to recommend a similarly priced Snapdragon X Plus laptop  If the Swift Go 14 AI dips below $800, however, it’s a good choice for people who need long battery life alongside decent CPU performance. Read...

I could spoil this entire article and tell you right off the bat which high-speed bus protocol you should be looking at for you current and future external storage needs… But where’s the fun in that? If you need an answer right away, simply scroll to the bottom and grab your instant gratification. Otherwise, educate yourself with this quick treatise on the various high-speed external protocols that are available, as well as their respective strengths and weaknesses. 10Gbps USB (USB 3.2) So, have we really come so far that a 10Gbps/1GBps transfer rate seems quaint? I’d say, yes, at least from the perspective of a long-time storage reviewer. Nevertheless, for small amounts of data, a 1GBps transfers rate is still going to get the job done quickly enough. SK Hynix 10Gbps Tube T31 SSDJon L. Jacobi And, of course, for a lot less cash than the 20Gbps/40Gbps options. If capacity means more to you than top performance, then 10Gbps USB (or even 5Gbps if you really don’t care about speed) could be the way to go. Best Usb 3.2 external drive Crucial X9 Pro Read our review Best Prices Today: $95 at Amazon 20Gbps USB (USB 3.2×2) This protocol offers fast 20Gbps transfers, but it’s the odd duck of the bunch. It will work on normal USB ports at reduced 10Gbps/5Gbps speed, but a dedicated and not particularly common 3.2×2 port (sometimes referenced at 20Gbps) is required to attain the promised 2GBps transfers. Another downside is that unlike USB4, USB 3.2×2 will not function at its full 20Gbps on most Thunderbolt 3 or 4 ports, instead dropping to 10Gbps — the rate of most native USB implementations. Thunderbolt passes through USB to the system. That speed drop afflicts all new Apple Silicon Macs. I was sorely disappointed when I found out that my more-than-fast-enough 20Gbps USB SSDs transferred at half speed on my otherwise stellar-performing Mac Studio. Crucial’s 20Gbps X10 ProJon L. Jacobi On the plus side, 20Gbps USB SSDs run cooler, use less juice than their 40Gbps counterparts, and still gets things transferred pretty darn quickly. The price of USB 3.2×2 SSDs has dropped some recently, due to USB4 showing up, but they’re still not as affordable as a 10Gbps SSDs. best usb 3.2×2 External drive Lexar SL600 20Gbps USB SSD Read our review Best Prices Today: $129.99 at B & H Photo | $150.24 at Amazon Thunderbolt While Thunderbolt has been the de facto high-speed port on Macs for well over a decade now, it’s not nearly as widespread on Windows PC platforms. Largely that’s because it’s pricier to implement than USB thanks to royalties and greater power delivery. That goes for both motherboards and drives. Thunderbolt is certainly more common than it once was, but it’s hardly ubiquitous on the Windows side of the pond. Here are the various flavors you might run across. Thunderbolt 1/2: These older versions with Mini-DisplayPort connectors and 10Gbps/20Gbps transfer rates are only found on legacy equipment, though you can connect newer Type-C Thunderbolt peripherals to these ports and vice versa using Apple’s Thunderbolt adapter. There are others, but check the specs carefully — some don’t connect 1/2 to 3/4/5, only vice versa. My advice? Stick with newer Thunderbolt 3/4/5 peripherals and use the adapter. Or perhaps upgrade your computer. Glyph Atom Pro SSD Jon L. Jacobi Thunderbolt 3: This version of the technology doubled bandwidth to 40Gbps and was the first version to use the Type-C connector. The latter confused just about everyone, as USB switched to this connector around the same time. Thankfully, Thunderbolt 3 tunnels USB so you may attach USB peripherals to a Thunderbolt port, if not the other way around. Thunderbolt 3 can achieve around 3GBps during transfers on most computers sporting the technology. It’s also getting cheaper as the industry moves on to Thunderbolt 4/5. Thunderbolt 4: 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 was more a certification update than a change in the technology. Intel found that vendors weren’t implementing all of Thunderbolt 3’s features all the time. Thunderbolt 4 made implementing the entire stadard mandatory if you wanted to use the name and logo. Thunderbolt 5: Version 5 doubles version 3/4’s 40Gbps storage bandwidth to 80Gbps. You may see 120Gbps mentioned in slides, but that’s downstream only to drive displays. Thunderbolt 5 also delivers significantly more power across the bus at 240W as opposed to Thunderbolt 3/4’s 100 watts and the mere 9.9 watts of 1/2. This makes Thunderbolt 5 the go-to for power users with power hungry storage peripherals — e.g., a RAID box. OWC’s 80Gbps Envoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5Jon L. Jacobi But wait… There’s a caveat! While Thunderbolt 5’s specs sound spectacular and it benchmarks great, it hasn’t shown a significant impact on real-world performance in our real-world large file transfers. Also, the doubled bandwidth does nothing to speed random performance, which is far more about seek time than raw throughput. So it won’t run an operating system appreciably faster than an older Thunderbolt 3/4 SSD. USB4 As you may or may not be aware, USB4 is basically a version of Thunderbolt 4 that was donated to the USB Forum by Intel. Hence there’s an awful lot in common including the up-to-40Gbps transfers. The ace up USB4’s sleeve is far greater compatibility. While you can’t attach Thunderbolt peripherals to older 1/2/3.x USB ports, you can attach USB4 peripherals to those ports with every expectation of them operating. Of course, only at the maximum speed of the older port — but hey, better slower than not at all! Also, the shared heritage means you can attach a USB4 peripheral to a Thunderbolt 3/4/5 port and have it work at its best speed: 20Gbps on Thunderbolt 3 and 40Gbps on the other two. Adata’s 40Gbps SE920 USB4 SSDJon L. Jacobi If almost complete compatibility weren’t enough, USB4 seems to be coming to market at a lower price point than Thunderbolt 3/4/5. Adata’s uber-fast SE920 is roughly $125 per terabyte, about par with no-name Thunderbolt 4/5 SSDs. Alternatively, you can grab a USB4 enclosure such as UGreen’s CM642 for less than $100 and add your own NVMe SSD. Note that there is an 80Gbps USB4 2.0 in the works (of course there is!), but we haven’t seen an implementation yet. best usb4 external drive Adata SE920 USB4 SSD Best Prices Today: $179.99 at Amazon USB4 for the win! If you just read all of the above, it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m giving the nod to USB4. It’s very fast, compatible with just about every computer and device on the planet, and more affordable than Thunderbolt. The only exceptions to that recommendation would be 5/10Gbps USB if you need something super cheap, or Thunderbolt 5 if you want absolute top performance and have the software and hardware to take advantage of it. Further reading: Best external drives Read...

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Adobe has launched advanced features in its Firefly Services, enhancing marketers` capabilities to produce personalised content rapidly across digital platforms. Read...

Adobe has unveiled new features for its GenStudio platform, enhancing AI capabilities to streamline content production and personalisation for marketers. Read...

When Major League Baseball starts its 2025 season on March 27, you can enhance your big-screen game-watching experience by enlisting the aid of your small screen; i.e., your smartphone or tablet laptop. A second screen adds context to the game by delivering everything from analysis, player stats, and interactive features, to tools for communicating with other fans. We’ve rounded up the six best second-screen apps that belong on your smartphone or tablet this baseball season. Download and install one or more of them to make sure you’re game ready when the ump yells “play ball!” MLB At Bat If you don’t use anything else this season, be sure to install at least the MLB app. Michael Ansaldo/Foundry As second-screen apps go, the MLB App remains the ace of the rotation. It personalizes the viewing experience by curating news, highlights, and live updates based on users’ favorite teams and players. On iPhones, live scores and updates appear directly on the lock screen and within the Dynamic Island, allowing fans to track games without opening the app. MLB.TV subscribers can stream up to four games simultaneously on supported mobile devices. Condensed game replays and key highlights are available shortly after each game ends, making it easier to catch up on the action. Audio access has expanded to include home and away radio broadcasts for every game, even in areas subject to blackout restrictions. The Gameday 3D feature provides real-time pitch tracking in an interactive environment, offering a deeper look at each play. For fans attending games in person, the app integrates ticketing and in-venue experiences, including seat upgrades and exclusive content. iScore Baseball Scoring a game by hand is a tradition that goes back to the earliest days of baseball; but in our digital age, this pen-and-paper activity could easily go the way of flannel uniforms and Pullman cars. Thankfully, there’s iScore Baseball. This app turns your device into a digital scorebook, but you don’t need to know any of the arcana of scorekeeping to use it. iScore employs interview prompts to help you track the on-field action. Say the batter grounds out to first base: To record that play, tap the Out button and iScore will ask what kind of out was made. Select Ground Out and the app will ask you to tap on the diamond where the ball was hit and the position that made the out. As you record each play in this manner, iScore translates it all into scorebook speak. After the game, you can generate and email a completed scoresheet, box score, or team stats. iScore Baseball, available for Android and iOS devices, can create a traditional scoresheet without requiring you to know the details of scorekeeping. And if the idea of scoring a game for posterity seems quaint now that the web can serve up play-by-play stats for just about any matchup in history, consider that its greater purpose might be keeping you focused on the game amid the distractions of home. ESPN If you prefer your baseball coverage from a third-party source, it’s tough to beat ESPN’s free flagship app. In addition to scores and standings, it will keep you supplied with a steady stream of injury reports, contract signings, and other breaking news from around the league. You’ll also get live streaming access to national and regional ESPN Radio stations and more than 100 ESPN Podcasts. Designate your favorite team and you can receive alerts before games and get the latest news and videos about your club sent directly to your ESPN inbox. Best of all, you can use the app as a second screen for other sports after the Fall Classic. Bleacher Report: Sports News Bleacher Report: Sports News lets you curate your own news feed to receive breaking news on your favorite MLB teams, players, and fantasy investments. Michael Ansaldo/Foundry Like most fans, it’s your own rooting interests rather than the league at large that keeps you glued to the screen. Bleacher Report understands this and lets you customize your second-screen experience with Bleacher Report: Sports News. Though not exclusively a baseball app, Bleacher Report: Sports News lets you curate your own news feed to receive breaking news on your favorite MLB teams, players, and fantasy investments. Just add your favorite clubs, and all the latest rumors, news, hot plays, and injury reports from those organizations will appear in a real-time stream on its home screen. The app also makes it easy to email, text, or social-share the juiciest stories with your baseball-loving buddies. A separate Scores tab keeps you up today on your team’s schedule and game results. ESPN Fantasy Sports The ESPN Fantasy app provides everything you need to manage your lineup from opening day to, hopefully, the postseason. You get full access to your ESPN fantasy team, letting you start, bench, add, drop, trade, and waive players, so you’re fielding the best nine possible on game day. It also provides a steady stream of player news and enough stats and analysis to satisfy the most hardcore sabermetrician. During games, the app keeps you updated with real-time scoring by all your fantasy players, while push notifications alert you to injuries, trades, and other player news. MiLB app There’s always important action in the minor leagues, too. The MiLB app helps you keep track of it all. Michael Ansaldo/Foundry A companion to the MLB app, the MiLB app provides similar coverage of 120 minor-league clubs with scores, stats, news, video highlights, and push-notification game alerts. As with the big-league app, the basics are free, but you must buy into video streams of games—both live and on-demand—and other premium offerings. But it’s the best way to scout tomorrow’s stars while following their parent clubs on TV. Pair it with At Bat for complete coverage of your favorite team’s entire organization. Batter up! Okay, those are our picks for the best second-screen apps for baseball. What do you think, did we hit a grand slam or fly out to left field? What are your favorite second-screen baseball apps? Let us know in the comments section on our Facebook page. And don’t miss our in-depth cord-cutter’s guide to streaming Major League Baseball without a cable subscription. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Fastest benchmarking NVMe SSD we’ve tested. DRAM for fast random operations Available in up to 4GB capacities, and soon 8TB Cons Expensive overkill for most users A hair off the pace in Windows file transfers Our Verdict The fastest Consumer NVMe SSD you can buy — but it ain’t cheap. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Samsung 9100 Pro Retailer Price $199.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket There was a time when Samsung was the long-reigning, undisputed performance king of the NVMe SSD market. Recently… Not so much. Well, the fallen are mighty once more thanks to the company’s 9100 Pro — the fastest NVMe SSD I’ve ever tested according to the benchmark software. Welcome back, Samsung! Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best SSDs for comparison. What are the 9100 Pro’s features? The Samsung 9100 is a state-of-the-art, PCIe 5.0 x4 (four-lane) NVMe 2.0 SSD with 1GB of DRAM per terabyte of capacity for primary caching duties. The controller is an in-house Samsung development according to the company, and the NAND is 236-layer(3D/stacked) TLC. The SSD is available in the 2280 (22mm wide, 80mm long) form factor and currently — 1TB through 4TB capacities. An 8TB version will be available the second half of 2025. Samsung 9100 Pro 4TB.Jon L. Jacobi / Foundry Most users won’t care that the 9100 requires about half the power of the previous top-of-the-line 990 Pro. But it amounts to longer battery life in laptops, and less heat in any device. The 9100 Pro is warrantied for five years and rated for 600TBW (terabytes that may be written) per terabyte of capacity. The time span is fine, but the TBW rating, while par for the course, could be a bit more generous given the price. Speaking of which… How much does the Samsung 9100 Pro cost? As of this writing the 1TB version of the 9100 Pro is $200, the 2TB capacity is $300, and the 4TB model is $550. Add $20 if you want a heatsink. Before adding the cost of the latter, make sure you actually need one (most users don’t), or that your system doesn’t already have a heatsink, and if not, can accommodate one. Our testbed’s upside-down secondary PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot forbids heatsinks — it’s a thing. Samsung 9100 Pro retail box and drive without heatsink. In terms of the overall SSD market, you’re definitely paying more for the premium performance. 4TB PCIe 4.0 host memory buffer (DRAM-less) NVMe SSDs are available for around half what the 9100 costs. But as you’ll see below, the performance is also premium — if you have the software to take advantage. In the right system with the right software, the 9100 Pro will run rings around the competition. How fast is the Samsung 9100 Pro? The cat’s already out of the bag on this one. The 4TB 9100 Pro that Samsung sent me aced all the synthetic benchmarks I threw at it in terms of sequential throughput: CrystalDiskMark 8, AS SSD 2.0, and ATTO Disk all placed it easily in first place — with a bullet. It also easily outstripped its PCIe 4.0 990 Pro predecessor in all ways. On the other hand, real-world performance, while well above average, was a just a hair off the fastest I’ve seen. That saw the drive sitting in third place among all the drives I’ve tested, behind the Crucial T705 and Corsair MP700 Pro SE — both of which are also PCIe 5.0 DRAM designs. The 9100 Pro’s sequential transfer numbers under CrystalDiskMark 8 are the highest we’ve ever seen from a consumer SSD. Longer bars are better. Samsung played up the 9100 Pro’s random performance in its press materials, mostly in comparison to the 990 Pro, but it fell a bit short of the competition. In fact, it was well down the charts with multi-queue random operations. However, there is not a lot of software that uses multiple NVMe queues currently, so the single-queue random performance is what you should really look at. The 9100 Pro was quite good at that. Samsung played up the 9100 Pro’s random performance, however, it didn’t match its sequential throughput or the random performance of its rivals. Longer bars are better. While the 9100 Pro reigned supreme in CrystalDiskMark 8, it lagged a hair behind its rivals in real-world transfers. Including the 48GB reads and writes shown below. That said, the 2-second difference is right around the margin of error for this test. The 9100 Pro was only two seconds off its rivals’ 48GB transfer times in aggregate. Shorter bars are better.. Though only 6 seconds slower in the 450GB write, that gap cost the 9100 Pro the overall crown. While lagging in random operations, host memory buffer drives tend to excel at this particular test so the 9100 actually fell to 17th best out of the 52 NVMe SSDs I’ve tested. Of course, we’re only talking about a 16 second/11 percent lag from the number one drive writing 450GB — the 8TB WD SN850X. Though 146 seconds is a very good 450GB write time, it’s not quite as fast as its rivals. Shorter bars are better. About our real-world transfer tests… They don’t always show off the ultimate capabilities of a drive, only what you’ll see when transferring files using Windows Explorer. Again, that’s largely because Windows uses only a single queue during transfers, negating much of NVMe’s advantage and rendering a vendor’s unique controller tricks basically moot. I’m hoping for better from Microsoft in the future. It would be nice to finally see real-world I/O that matches that of benchmarks. Should you buy the Samsung 9100 Pro? If you have the bucks, absolutely. In the right system with the right software, the 9100 Pro will run rings around the competition. On the other hand, most users not loading large language models or such will be just fine with an HMB design for half the price. How we test Drive tests currently utilize Windows 11, 64-bit running on an X790 (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of memory total). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 4 are integrated to the back panel and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an ImDisk RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB of total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from a 2TB Samsung 990 Pro which also runs the OS. Each test is performed on a newly NTFS-formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a drive fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This can be less of a factor with the current crop of SSDs with far faster late-generation NAND. Caveat: The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped and to the capacity tested. SSD performance can and will vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching. Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report, by all means, let us know. Read...

In the 1990s, a colleague took me to “Snake Alley,” Taipei’s red-light district, for a night of drinking with “entertainers” and some of their very muscled, serious friends. A good time was had by all, fortunately. Still, I was young, dumb, and lucky that I didn’t end up in any trouble. Some parts of the internet are like that, too. If you think you’ll be potentially surfing into a risky internet neighborhood — a knockoff shopping site, a little-known streaming service, or somewhere you’re just not entirely sure is legit — and you have a spare laptop lying around, you can always repurpose it to become what I call a “Paranoid PC”: a laptop hardened for additional privacy and security. In my case, I was able to do it for “free.” But it does require a version of Windows 10 or 11 that’s not that common, and an existing VPN subscription. I am also not claiming that this PC configuration will protect you from any and all malware and prying eyes, but it will certainly help. Further reading: If you don’t use these PC security essentials, you’re begging to be hacked Putting together a Paranoid PC What you’ll need: a VPN subscription and a laptop (16GB of RAM preferred) running Windows 10/11 Pro I’ve repurposed an older laptop to create my Paranoid PC. You can use your day-to-day PC for this purpose, but it also potentially exposes you to greater risks if anything bad slips through the security screen. In any case, it’s a good idea in almost any case to use an account without administrator access for additional security, and possibly a local account at that. To Get Sandbox, you`ll need this Windows 11 Pro The key, though, is to have a PC set up with Windows 10 or 11 Pro because of a feature it offers: Windows Sandbox. Sandbox has been around for five years (!), and I still feel like it’s one of the most underappreciated features within Windows. Sandbox creates a virtualized environment with minimal setup; essentially, it’s a Windows PC within your PC, protected by a “moat” that isolates it from your PC. Once you close Sandbox, the entire “PC” and anything it has within it is erased, permanently. That includes any malware that may have wormed its way in. Sandbox is an optional feature within Windows 10 or 11 Pro, and to access it you’ll need to turn it on. To enable it, you’ll need to go to the Windows Features control panel, which you can find by searching for Turn Windows features on and off within Windows Search. (We have a deeper dive into Windows Sandbox, here.) Once you enable Sandbox, Windows will update itself with the appropriate features, reboot, and open up Windows again. You’ll need to launch Windows Sandbox via the Start menu or the Search box. Sandbox essentially creates a PC environment within a window, but it’s a generic PC. You don’t need to log in, and please don’t! We want this PC to be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible. Windows Sandbox running within Windows 11 Pro. Note the two taskbars.PCWorld You can expand Sandbox to the dimensions of your screen, or leave it windowed. It’s up to you. Install the Brave browser I’ve argued in the past that Sandbox provides a powerful level of security and privacy, just by its lonesome. But we’re going to go further. What Sandbox allows you to do is use the built-in version of Microsoft Edge to download other software. And while Microsoft Edge is no slouch in the privacy department, we’re going to use Brave’s browser to provide an additional level of privacy and security. Brave offers tons of privacy settings, though it can be a bit aggressive.Mark Hachman / IDG Brave started off as a very privacy-oriented browser, and still is. Its reputation has soured a bit because of its ties to cryptocurrencies, but it’s still a good choice to download for surfing the deeper reaches of the web. If you want to use another browser, though, (or just Edge) you can. Just make sure to configure it the way you want, adding any plugins you choose. I still wouldn’t log in or otherwise identify yourself, however. Install a VPN I use a VPN because, well, it’s none of your business. And that’s the whole point. VPNs can be used to access content in other countries, avoid the eyes of authoritarian governments, privately chat with friends, and so on. It’s akin to locking your door and drawing your shades, and most people do that in the real world. A VPN is a good idea to add to your Paranoia PC.Mark Hachman / IDG Running a VPN won’t necessarily protect your Sandbox PC from malware, but it does add an additional layer of anonymity protection. Some VPNs also include upgraded antivirus, too. (Sometimes Brave can get a tad too aggressive in blocking downloads and scripts. In that case, go ahead and use Edge to download a VPN instead.) You might be able to get away with running a VPN outside Sandbox, but just in case I installed it from within the Sandbox environment. the best vpn we`ve tested ExpressVPN Read our review Which VPN should you use for privacy? You can choose from either a less powerful free VPN or one of our more powerful paid recommended VPNs. I prefer a VPN that offers generous device connections to allow me the freedom to install it on multiple laptops, but there are plenty to choose from. VPNs are a category where you get what you pay for, though. Surf safely through the stormy seas Once you’ve installed Sandbox, Brave, and a VPN, you’re done. You can begin exploring some of the shadier parts of the web. Feel free, of course, to install other software. If you want to download a free or premium antivirus package for additional security, go for it. When you think about it, anything bad is going to have to break out of the Brave browser’s sandbox, then get by the antivirus, then crack Windows Sandbox. That’s not impossible, but pretty unlikely. There are a couple things to keep in mind, though. Pay attention to what environment your cursor is in. If you absent-mindedly open Edge in the standard desktop environment, that browser window lacks all of your Sandbox protections, and probably the VPN’s as well. It’s part of the reason I recommend Brave: Not only is it designed for privacy, but it’s not a browser many people use. Brave signals me that I’m within Sandbox’s protective embrace. I’m not recommending that you put Sandbox to the test by downloading malware. In this case, however, the EICAR virus is designed to act like malware without really being malware.Mark Hachman / IDG Brave also blocks ads and popups — which, in certain areas of the web, can be an avenue to malware. We still recommend that you surf safe and do not go clicking willy-nilly on anything you see. But, if you do download something malevolent, it should be cut off by Sandbox. In the worst case, where Sandbox’s “PC” becomes noticeably infected, you can simply close Sandbox down by closing the window. You’ll receive a notification that this will erase everything within the Sandbox environment, but that’s okay. All you need to do is open a new version of Sandbox, which will be pristine and untouched. You’ll then need to re-download Brave, the VPN, and any other software, however. And we’d recommend running an antivirus scan on your main Windows installation just to be safe. Sandbox does have one other feature worth knowing about: its File Explorer, which is sort of like an airlock. If you do happen to download something involuntarily, it will receive the normal protections from Windows Security. But anything you voluntarily download will land in the Sandbox Downloads folder. Downloads from within Sandbox go into the Downloads folder, which can be accessed from outside Sandbox. Just be sure it’s safe by checking it within Sandbox.Mark Hachman / IDG You’d be well advised to double-check the file by right-clicking on it. (In Windows 11, go to “Show more options” and then “Scan with Microsoft Defender” or another antivirus program. Or drop it in VirusTotal.com to check against multiple online antivirus programs.) Just check it (or run it) from within Sandbox! From there, you can cut and paste it into your main PC operating system. Security professionals, of course, will have more sophisticated protection available to them. But for the average surfer, this provides some strong additional protection. Think of this “Paranoid PC” as a bodyguard in a dark alley, with a big SUV waiting to whisk you back to the real world if things go bad. Further reading: These 10 simple security tweaks keep you safe Read...

Are you tired of all those power cords and charging cables cluttering up your workspace? Between laptops, phones, monitors, headphones, keyboards, mice… it can get messy and overwhelming. That’s when a sleek charging station like this 6-in-1 Baseus Blade can work wonders, and right now it’s on sale for just $59.49 on Amazon with an awesome 40% discount coupon. All you have to do is apply the X4LPDNM4 code at checkout to get this amazing price. This compact charging station features two AC outlets, three USB-C ports, and one USB-A port. Just pop this thing on your desk, plug in the 5-foot power cord, and connect your devices as needed. Instead of messing with chunky power strips and adapters, you can route everything through this minimal charging station that keeps everything organized. At just 0.68 inches thick, it won’t get in your way. It’s a powerful one, too, able to deliver 140W of power. That means fast charging for your laptop and phone, plus enough juice to keep your monitors and accessories going. Of course, when multiple ports are in use, the power gets split between them. Fortunately, you can always rely on the built-in digital display that shows you real-time charging info, power output per port, voltage, current, and more. Don’t forget to use the discount code X4LPDNM4 at checkout to snag this Baseus charging station for $59.49 on Amazon! This 6-in-1 Baseus Blade charging station is 40% offBuy now at Amazon Read...