Wicked Lasers Spyder III Krypton 1 Watt Green Laser Review

Introduction

If you drive a Volvo, care about crash safety ratings, never turn traction control off or wear safety glasses when working in the garage, this article isn't for you. Go make sure your Microsoft Smart Screen Filter is on and browse somewhere else today. I'm not saying this to be mean, but if you continue reading, you will be offended one way or another. (Ed. Note - oh, here we go!)

With major news outlets like CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Discovery Channel, Esquire and Maxim Magazines covering stories of death rays, personal light sabers and every far flung story they could, Wicked Lasers had finally broken through the barrier between niche market and retail success with the Spyder III Arctic (which we reviewed), the world's first 1 watt hand held laser. The SIII Arctic really brought Wicked Lasers into the mainstream and with that success came a few failures. Many new customers who purchased the SIII Arctic had to wait several months to take delivery and there were claims of fraud and scams rampant all over the place. The issues were so far out of control I want to tackle them first in this article.

For those who kept their order in and patiently waited for their Arctic found that the device wasn't a cheap plastic toy. The build quality on the Arctic Series isn't anything like what you find in grocery store lasers, nor is its output power. If you took your Arctic and smacked someone over the head with it, you could kill them and not damage the laser housing in any way. The build quality of these Spyder III units is amazing. Wicked Lasers learned firsthand about inventory management and those issues have now been tackled. Orders are now shipping very quickly and delivery times are very reasonable.

That firsthand experience is going to come in handy this year because Wicked Lasers has a new, even brighter model that is the must have laser for 2012. According to Wicked Lasers, green light appears to the human eye 2,000% brighter than blue light. That means you can use a less powerful green laser and still get the same effects we observed with the Arctic model last year. On the other side, you can still get the 1 watt version like we are testing today and take the laser experience to a whole new level.

Try around 85 miles (137 kilometers) to be exact.

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Synology DS212 2-Bay NAS Review

Introduction

This is the second product we've seen from Synology with the first being the DS411+II. Our first run with the DS411+II was an eye opener and we walked away with a firm admiration for the products Synology is releasing on the market. NAS appliances are not like video cards or other traditional computer components, these aren't components that get swapped out every couple of years and because of that most people don't get to see everything the market has to offer. Because of that you need to determine what it is you are looking for first and the options are vaster than you may imagine.

The Synology products I've seen so far tend to excel in the ease of use category. I would be comfortable dropping a DS212 off at my mother's house and letting her sort the installation and connections. I couldn't say the same thing about the typical QNAP or Thecus products I've tested in the past. Those products are easy for TweakTown readers to setup, but nothing like the Synology DS212.

A large reason for that is the way Synology configures their software layer. The QNAP and Thecus products are more tech based while the DS212 is more laymen, like a toaster, you get a couple of dials and a big lever to pull before everything works exactly like you want it to. Users looking to go head on into technology bliss still have all the other options to fine tune their NAS appliance, but it isn't a requirement.

So, in short the Synology DS212 is a consumers NAS built for your mom to hold pictures that you wish she didn't scan from your youth, is easy to setup and has an attractive price. The DS212 is also a NAS for you too with lots of bells and whistles and that is what we are going to focus on today.

Read on to see why this tame entry can easily turn into a tiger.

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G.Skill RipjawsZ PC3-12800 16GB Memory Kit Review

Moving away from the AMD Radeon HD 7970 video cards for a little bit we check out another kit of RAM from G.Skill that isn't the typical high-end kit that we normally look at from the company. Instead it's an $89.99 USD kit that hits at a really aggressive price point. But what do we get for a kit of RAM from G.Skill for under $100 US? Well, let's get into it and find out.

The first thing you're going to notice is that the kit comes in as part of the popular RipjawsZ series which was introduced with the X79 chipset to let people know that it's a Quad Channel kit which of course means we've got four modules present in the kit. We've got the same heatsink design present with red being the color of choice here.

Looking at the kit, though, the one thing I absolutely love is that we've got a black PCB present. A lot of companies don't offer a black PCB as it is, the ones that do tend to always move to a green PCB when it comes to some of the cheaper kits. It's awesome to see the black PCB present here on this RipjawsZ kit.

Moving a little closer we can see our RipjawsZ labelling on one side while the other gives us a sticker that lets us know the main specifications of the kit. As we move in closer, though, we again get a good look at that black PCB and against the red heatsink that G.Skill offer here. It looks fantastic.

Looking at our main specification sticker we can see what exactly we're dealing with today. One of the main reasons the price is more aggressive than some of the other G.Skill quad channel kits we've looked at is because we're dealing with a PC3-12800 kit that translates into 1600MHz DDR.

On the timings side of things we've got a CL9 setup that comes in at 9-9-9-24-2T with a default voltage of a low 1.5 volts. We're also of course dealing with a quad channel kit that consists of four modules. Each module comes in at 4GB which means we're dealing with a 16GB kit which has quickly become the size to get with the new X79 platform.

Being a 1600MHz DDR kit we knew that getting to that speed wasn't going to be an issue and we found ourselves in Windows straight away with the default timings. You can see our CPU-Z validation here. Up and running in Windows it was time to check out the performance we could get.

Under AIDA64 we ended up with read / write numbers of 17,969 MB/s / 15,150 MB/s, copy speed of 17,072 MB/s and latency of 54.7ns.

With everything up and running at stock with no issue we always head back into the BIOS and see what's going on with the overclocking side of things. The first thing we tried to do was move to the 1866MHz divider while pushing the voltage up to 1.65v. Unfortunately we didn't have any luck so we headed back into the BIOS and pushed the timings out to 10-10-10-24-2T and while we could boot, we couldn't get into Windows.

Back in the BIOS we started to mess around with the BCLK a little bit which lets us fine tune the memory clock speed. After a bit of messing around we ended up in Windows at 1630MHz DDR which isn't much of an overclock at all. Because of that we headed back into the BIOS and moved to a 9-9-24-1T setup from the default 9-9-9-24-2T setup.

With that up and running with no dramas, we headed back to the BIOS and pushed our multiplier up to 47x which brings our CPU clock in at 4.7GHz. You can see our CPU-Z validation here. Up and running in Windows it was time to check out the performance we could get.

Under AIDA64 we ended up with read / write numbers of 17,969 MB/s / 15,150 MB/s, copy speed of 17,072 MB/s and latency of 50.7ns.

Comparing the results we see a nice little boost in performance, but for the most part that is due to the overclock more so than the 1T rating which would help a little with mainly just the latency side of things verse the overall bandwidth.

Before getting this kit I knew that overclocking wasn't going to be an area it shined in. The price tag that it comes in at and the competition around it means that it's targeted at an audience who aren't all that interested in overclocking, instead they just want a kit of RAM that's going to run well at stock. In this case the G.Skill does that perfectly while at the same time giving us the opportunity to move to a 1T command rate if wanted for that little bit of performance boost.

The biggest highlight for the kit is of course the price tag and at $89.99 USD it's priced extremely well against the competition. On top of the price, though, it's one of the best looking kits at this price point since it not only carries the same RipjawsZ cooler seen on the more expensive modules, but also has that black PCB that looks great, especially if you install it into a motherboard that also offers a black PCB.

G.Skill do a great job of targeting so many levels of consumers with 2400MHz CL9 kits, 64GB kits at different speeds or just well valued 16GB kits. If you look through the arsenal that G.Skill has, you'll find something for you and your budget. Today the PC3-12800 ZL kit we're looking at falls into that latter category extremely well.

With 16GB on offer from this quad channel kit for $89.99 USD, you get a good amount of RAM at a really good price. On top of that, it's probably one of the best looking kits that come in at under $100 US thanks to that black PCB and awesome looking RipjawsZ. If you've blown all your money on a new CPU and video card for your machine, you can turn around and buy this 16GB kit of RAM from G.Skill and know you're getting something that not only performs well, but looks great as well.

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Patriot Pyro SE 240GB Solid State Drive Review

Introduction

2011 has come to an end, but that doesn't mean technology is slowing down one bit. For the second year in a row the solid state drive market was dominated by SandForce. If you wanted to produce a drive that was capable of the highest performance possible, you needed to start with a SandForce SF-2200 Series controller and pair it with either ONFi 2.0 or Toggle Mode NAND flash.

Looking out on the horizon we don't see SandForce trying to leap frog themselves early this year and we don't see why they would need to. Last month we looked at the latest from Indilinx (OCZ Octane) and Marvell (Corsair Performance Pro) and neither controller managed to muster the performance of the SF-2281. Sometime in the middle of 2012 we'll see Team SandForce manufactures move to 24nm Toggle Mode and maybe even 20nm IMFT flash, but neither of these technologies will bring a great deal to the table over the tried and true SF-2281 / synchronous flash combination we have today. The Patriot Pyro SE uses this magical combination to deliver amazing performance for general computing tasks and at an equally amazing price point.

Patriot's Pyro brand hasn't been a stranger to our pages. We've looked at the 120GB and 240GB baseline models with asynchronous and found them to be the entry level for high speed SSDs in 2011. The Pyro SE is the next evolution, a tick higher on the ladder and uses more expensive but faster performing synchronous flash.

Both products offer very good access times, the performance you feel while opening programs and Windows, but the SE is capable of delivering greater performance when the drive start to get populated with data. Our Fill Test shows the SE is capable of substantial performance gains or more appropriately less performance loss when compared to the asynchronous flash models on the market.

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Toy Story 3 3D (2010) Blu-ray Movie Review

15 years after the first Toy Story film, Pixar return to the series that started it all, capping the series off with an emotional and fun ride for the kids of today, but especially so for the kids that grew up in the early 90's whom have grown up with the films.

Andy has grown up and is about to leave home to go to college. The toys don't get played with much these days, but at least they've stayed together. All this is threatened when the toys find themselves at the mercy of the aggressive play at the local day care centre - if they don't make a timely escape, they'll face certain death. But escape may prove difficult under the watch of the bad toys at Sunnyside day care.

Toy Story 3 is a heartwarming capper to a series which has grown in stature and become even more beloved as time has gone by. With fly-by-night films filling toy store shelves and then disappearing just as fast, there are very few film series that can sustain the interest of the public for 15 years, but Toy Story has done just that. I'd always wanted a Woody and Buzz toy for my own, and a few months did just that...but ended up buying the whole collection. That kind of dedication doesn't happen for every film.

Video

Toy Story 3 3D is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (its original aspect ratio), encoded with MVC compression.

3D fans might be slightly disappointed by the presentation of Toy Story 3 3D, but it's nothing to do with the technical qualities of the disc. The truth is, the film has some of the most subtle 3D effects yet seen for a 3D film, so those looking to be poked in the eye by a toy should go and play with a toddler. Roger Ebert even advocated to audiences to skip seeing the film in 3D and go straight to the 2D presentation for a brighter image. Ultimately on Blu-ray you have the choice between the 3D and 2D presentation, and truthfully I will probably opt for the 2D version in most cases. The irony is of course that Toy Story 3 is the only film in the series to be natively produced in 3D, yet is also the least impressive.

Despite this, the 2D presentation is simply amazing, with great colours and a razor sharp presentation (as one would expect). The jump in animation quality between the 3 Toy Story entries is really a sight to behold, to the point where it's almost jarring - but it's responsible for its emotional edge over its predecessors.

Overall, another impeccable result from Disney.

Audio

The main audio track is encoded with DTS HD Master Audio 7.1 at 24 bits.

The same amazing mix is featured on both the 3D and 2D versions, and either way they are extremely aggressive and involving mixes. It's hard to imagine but every animated film needs to have an audio mix built from the ground up. Whilst this gives the audio designers leverage to do whatever they want, there is still a sense of reality that must be injected to not completely isolate an audience.

An amazing track that is sure to be a family friendly, demo-worthy track.

Extras

Unfortunately, for this 3D re-release of Toy Story 3, Disney have dropped the 2nd Blu-ray disc of extra features which was included on the previous 2D Blu-ray release which means that fans will want to hold on to the original release to retain all the features. The following features are found on the 2D disc.

Day and Night harkens back to the days of cinema being used to exhibit short films, and this is one of Pixar's latest, but completely separate from any existing franchise or characters. It's cute, but I found out it wore out its welcome relatively quickly.

The Buzz Lightyear Mission Logs is a very short featurette which explains the concept of space travel to the littlies.

The Toys featurtette briefly discusses the introduction of some of the new characters and locations featured in Toy Story 3.

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