Piltch Point (Video)

This week, Avram Piltch talks about some of the new announcements from Microsoft at Mobile World Congress 2019. The must-anticipated second generation of the HoloLens was the star of the show. The new hardware is lighter, faster, and smarter. Dynamics 365 brings an added benefit of hands-on tutorials, while new Azure capabilities make it easier to deal with pinning virtual objects. The new hardwar...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses the future of Raspberry Pi, as told by the CEO of Raspberry Pi Trading, Eben Upton . Eben is also the creator of the platform and plans the direction of the platform today. While the original Pi was designed specifically for a limited audience at Cambridge, the current Pi (the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ ) is widely available, and the platform has sold over 24 million units...

This week, Avram Piltch gives us a hands-on with one of our favorite CES 2019 devices: Sphero Specdrums . When most people think of Sphero, they usually think of round robots, but this product definitely breaks the mold. In fact, Specdrums is a color sensing ring that allows you to play music. Simply place the ring up against something of a particular color, such as the included mat, and your phon...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses his reactions to CES 2019 and what he sees as the trends that can be expected as we head into 2019. The real winner of CES, and possibly of the entire year, is AMD. As the company expands its reach and enhances its product offerings, chief competitor Intel is struggling to keep up. Intel has had production issues and has not been able to keep up with demand, leadi...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses some of his predictions for what we will see and, more importantly, what we won't see in 2019. Avram expects to see the price of SSD drop seeing around 10 cents per gigabyte, meaning that you will be able to purchase a 1 terabyte drive for around $100. This should start a trend in laptops replacing their built-in drives to SSD, even on less expensive machines. He...

This week, Avram Piltch has a hands-on with a gaming keyboard he is currently reviewing for Tom's Hardware: the Viper Gaming V765 Mechanical Keyboard . This keyboard is designed for gamers, featuring a shorter actuation distance, making it easier to respond quickly while gaming. The switches are an uncommon white, which makes they click, but not require as much pressure to actuate. But it is also...

This week, Avram Piltch talks about some of the Holiday deals that are still available. While Black Friday used to be a single day, it expanded into Cyber Monday, and today it encompasses nearly the entire month of December. Some of the deals that are available expire on Cyber Monday, there are still a ton of deals that you can get for yourself or a loved one right now.

This week, Avram Piltch is here to help you prepare for Black Friday deals and duds. Every year, retailers rush to bring you deals on clothing, electronics, components, and more. However, some of these supposed deals are not quite the special they pretend to be. In fact, it is not unusual to find a price that is higher than it is on a normal day. Or, more commonly, it is still not as great of a pr...

This week, Avram Piltch is here to help you prevent buying an SSDud. This holiday, SSDs are expected to drop in price greatly, but not every drive is a good price. Sometimes, a sale price is higher than the regular price at another retailer. Sometimes, a drive that is inexpensive, is that way because it is not a quality product. Luckily, there are some great ways to spot a bad deal before you spen...

This week, Avram Piltch shows off Samsung's most recent laptop: the Samsung Galaxy Book 2. This attempt at a Microsoft Surface rival skips an Intel chip and, instead, uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 processor. That means that this laptop does not come close to the Surface Pro 6's performance or capabilities, though it does come close to the price. This below entry-level runs $1000 - an insanely hig...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses some stories of experiences PC refurbishers have had when opening up computers. Can you imagine opening up a desktop computer to find a loaded pistol instead of a CD drive? Or what about letting a collection of live roaches escape from a computer, only to have them infest your office? Those are just some of the bizarre and unpleasant experiences that refurbishers...

This week, Avram Piltch has all of the information about Intel's newest generation of processors: the 9th Generation Core, also known as Coffee Lake Refresh. There is a trio of processors, an i5, i7, and i9. The i9 is the most interesting of the lot, upgrading the previous model, which had 6 cores, bringing an additional 2, for a total of 8. The launch did not come without controversy, however, as...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses one of the most recent products he has had the opportunity to review: the Kano Computer Kit Touch. In March, Avram introduced us to the Kano Computer Kit , and this new model addresses one of the issues identified in the previous model: a lack of touchscreen. Most kids expect a screen to be touchable and making a kids device that required a keyboard and mouse was...

This week, Avram Piltch shows you how to enable Dark Mode across a variety of platforms on your PC. The feature has come out of the darkness in the past year, with many developers building the feature into their software, even on the web. Windows has supported the feature since Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8, but the capability is gaining wide adoption now. Luckily, Avram's got the process for Wind...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses Windows settings to change . Some of them speed up your computer while others make it less annoying to use. Some of his suggestions are pretty straightforward, like unhiding file extensions and hidden folders. On the other hand, some are more controversial, like disabling User Account Controls, garnering dozens of comments within hours on Tom's Hardware.

This week, Avram Piltch discusses his experiences in teaching his young son about electronics, robotics, programming and other STEAM-related topics. In the years the two have done projects together, Avram has learned a few things to look out for, as well as some best practices that have worked to keep his son involved and excited, including working with physical elements, like Arduino, as opposed...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses one of the biggest costs in building your own computer: Windows. While Microsoft sells a copy of Windows 10 Home for $139, there are other ways to get Windows 10 going for little or no cost. Whether you repurpose an existing activation key or purchase it wholesale, Avram's got some ideas to decrease the cost of your build.

This week, Avram Piltch discusses the legality of videogame ROMs and Nintendo's response to them. Previously, Nintendo has issued cease-and-desist letters to sites that host and distribute ROM files, but this week they ramped up their approach by suing. The suits bring back the topic of whether or not ROMs are legal. Tom's Hardware's Scharon Harding spoke to legal experts to arrive at a consensus:...

This week, Avram Piltch gives us a hands-on with the Elegoo EL-KIT-012 Smart Robot Car Kit V 3.0 , an Arduino-powered robot kit he purchased on Amazon Prime Day 2018 . The kit comes with everything you need to get started: an Arduino UNO, chassis, wheels, ultrasonic distance finder, IR controller and more. One oddity is that the instructions come on a DVD, but thankfully the company also offers th...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses his less than stellar experience trying to purchase a laptop for himself. Earlier this year, while at LAPTOP Mag, he gave the Lenovo X1 Carbon a perfect score . A few months later, he publicly purchased one himself . A big part of his decision was the laptop's keyboard, a feature which is always important for him. Unfortunately, the experience of purchasing this l...

This week, Avram Piltch is immersed in a personal experiment of technological discovery: using Linux full-time. While this is not his first time running this experiment, he has taken it to a new level. He is using a newer flavor of Linux, Mint, and has installed it on his everyday laptop. In fact, his broadcast over Skype for the show was done from the Linux installation. There have been some ups...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses some of the ways that you can make your computer faster. No matter how fast or slow your computer is, most of the time it is waiting on you, not the other way around. So, to make your computing experience faster, you need to work on ways to speed up yourself . For example, learn to embrace the keyboard. Keyboard shortcuts can keep your hands on the keyboard, rathe...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses our favorite topic of the year: LAPTOP's Best and Worst Laptop Brands . Every year, the company creates a report card for the top 10 brands, with LAPTOP reviews, design, support & warranty, innovation and value & selection all factoring into the scores. This year, Lenovo once again reigns supreme, and Samsung and MSI sit at the bottom. Avram explains why a...

This week, Avram Piltch discusses some of the best robots for kids of all ages. Whether your child is young and needs a device that doesn't require reading and gives a lot of assistance, or is older and wants to program with little to no help, Avram's got an option for you.

This week, Avram Piltch discusses some of the major advances that have happened in the world of processors in the past few weeks. He begins with the official release of Windows 10 on ARM, the new ARM-powered computers that run a complete version of Windows (compared to the previous Windows RT). The first generation can run most Win32 apps (32-bit applications), while a future update will add 64-bi...