GXCredits AnGBAo Bonus is here!

GX MONTHLY FEATURING - wEsTERN dIGITAL GIvEAwAY, bIOsHOck INFINITE pRE-ORdER, ANd MORE

Find out how inside...

win 2tBportABle hArd disk

ENjOY THEsE pROMOTIONs AT...

* disclaimer: promotion details are accurate at time of print.

.cOM.sG

School or work, Western Digital has your digital data covered.

It has become a norm that almost everyone has use for a high capacity storage drive that is also portable. Thumbdrives used to be able to make the mark

some time ago, but with artwork requiring bigger storage and the incessant use of videos, capacities of 500GB to 2TB are slowly becoming popular.

Meet the “My Passport” series from Western Digital. Today, we take a close look at them to see who they are better suited for.

Price:$119(PC), $139(MAC)

Capacity: 500GB

Dimensions:(L)110mm (B)81.6mm (D)12.8mm

This is the most portable hard disk in the series and packs a maximum of

500GB. The USB 3.0 connection cable is also backward compatible with

USB 2.0. This means faster transfer rates with the latest USB technology,

while still being able to plug into older machines. As we all know, not every

computer in school or at work features the latest USB 3.0 connection. With its

ultra portability and decent size, it is easy to see why this could be a popular

product.

Who is it for?

Students who need to bring their school projects around, share videos or even

share their favourite free-to-play games will find this little guy very handy. It

slips nicely into the bag, does not get in the way and is extremely light even

for female users.

For the corporate working adult, if your documents are mostly small files like

Word document or Powerpoint, this is more than enough for you.

Photographers, videographers, designers might want to remember that they

will work with storage gobbling file formats and will want to stay away from

this, unless it is more of a temporary solution.

My Passport Edge(Mac Edition available)The runt of the family

My Passport(Mac Edition available)The more popular sibling among the three

Price:$109(500GB), $129(750GB) $149(1TB), $249(2TB)

Capacity: 500GB - 2TB

Dimensions:(L)111m (B)82mm (D)15mm - 21mm

While slightly bigger than the Edge, this packs up to 2TB of storage. That’s

almost as good as your typical hard disk drive and you can carry it around.

It features the same USB 3.0/2.0 conectivity for major convenience when

passing around data. You also have a choice of capacities ranging from

500GB, 750GB, 1TB and 2TB. The size of the portable disks will vary

according to the storage size by a few millimetres.

Who is it for?

Unless you are a design or digital art student, there would be little reason

for anyone studying to need a portable storage device that huge. There

would be only two reasons to get this model, the first being you find

yourself always hitting the 500GB ceiling and the other being the fact that

a 500GB and 750GB My Passport is cheaper or more value for money than

the Edge. You are sacrificing portability to save some money which is a fair

argument.

Working adults, while it would be hard to see why one would need 1TB of

space if you are handling documents only, get this if you deal with video

presentations, massive documented files, music and other large file formats,

or you could settle for the 500GB or 750GB version just because it is easily

affordable.

Photographers, videographers and designers will surely love this when it

comes to porting their large file formats. That 2TB of space will come in

handy and even at that price point, you know that the equipment for the

things you do naturally requires some form of investment. Imagine how

convenient it is to bing your working art files around while you are on the go.

This ones possibly made for you.

CONTEST:Win yourself a My Passport 2TB for Mac, or a My Passport 2TB for PC.

Price:$169(500GB), $219(1TB), $329(2TB)

Capacity: 500GB - 2TB

Dimensions:(L)126mm (B)84mm (D)19mm - 24mm

The Studio version is a lot like the standard My Passport with one very distinct

feature - the addition of FireWire 800 ports. You have two FireWire ports that

you can connect to a Mac or PC with, and with the second FireWire, you can

connect another My Passport Studio to create a daisy chain of hard disks. On

a personal note, I wouldn’t know why anyone would do that, but yes you can

with this model.

Who is it for?

In general the previousl mentioned portable hard disks covers almost every

category that I can think of. To want a portable hard disk with FireWire, you

must really want to transfer files at blazing speeds of 800Mb/s. Not to mention

that you are able to daisy chain multiple hard disks together, you probably

have a lot of videos that your are archiving. That’s my take for the My

Passport Studio.

My Passport StudioPacked with features for the power user

HEAD OvEr TO Our FACEBOOk PAGE FOr MOrE iNFOrMATiON.

HTTPS://WWW.FACEBOOk.COM/Gx.COM.SG

roccat kone xTD review

The low-profile German peripheral manufacturer ROCCAT recently dropped a new addition to their mouse line-up with the Kone XTD. This is a lot like the previous Kone [+], but has a better sensor, processor, buttons and a special surprise, which I will talk about soon enough.The mouse looks plain to be honest, but that actually brings more attention to its multi-colored LED strips. You can customise the light colors to whatever you wish as long as you have the drivers.

The mouse might feel large in small hands, but the rubberised shell and ergonomic shape gives you a good and comfortable grip. Sad to say, left-handed mouse users are left out of the scene thanks to its shape.One thing to take note, the Kone XTD also come with those weights for you to define how heavy you want your mouse to be. While this allows max customization, those weights are extremely hard to take out once you slot them in. I had to use a knife to pull mine out.For buttons, there are your usual two on the front, two at the side(one being very special), a roller that’s also clickable and you can put pressure against it, left and right for an additional two buttons and finally another two buttons behind the roller wheel. That’s about nice buttons on the surface.

The special surprise I mentioned earlier is ROCCAT’s Easy-Shift button. This acts like a “shift” button on the mouse that lets you give different functions to all your mouse buttons. The Easy-Shift function works on any button you wish to specify and is one of my favourite things about this mouse.Instead of using a thumb-grid, or hiding mouse buttons all around the mouse, this Easy-Shift function gives you double the macro-ing space to bind keys to your mouse. You can download this off the ROCCAT site, along with the mouse driver that lets you customise your mouse, from lighting to sensitivity.The mouse features a sensor of up to 8,200DPI, which in my opinion is almost impossible to use. However, it also means that you have a wider range of cusom options to pick from. That said, the Kone XTD feels like the answer to all the over-the-top specifications of mice from the other brands. In all honesty, the Kone [+] is already a fantastic mouse on its own. This XTD version is a fantastic mouse with the latest technologies built-in.

Asus PadFone 2 reviewMuch like the first PadFone, the PadFone 2 is once again and phone that seamlessly connects to a tablet dock to give users that wide screen tablet experience. Some of the flaws of the first PadFone was its low battery life and cumbersome phone-to-tablet transformation. Asus has since gone back to the drawing board to relook into that concept and this is their answer.Straight off, the phone itself is extremely light and a lot sleeker than its predecessor. The station looks as impressive and allows for the phone to be docked nicely without having to open any door compartment whatsoever. The phone fits snugly into the dock and the only way to drop it off is to swing the tablet REALLY HARD.Together with the tablet, this setup is really light and actually quite presentable. The only issue I’ve had so far was the tablet screen being a real fingerprint magnet and the lack of third party covers for this. Asus however, does have its own proprietary cover that you can purchase.

The power of the PadFone 2 lies in the Quad Core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and the 2GB Ram. This allows for smooth operation of the Ice Cream Sandwich Android OS. Its 4.7 inch Super IPS panel allows for a resolution of 1280x720 pixes and handles a good 1280x800 resolution when you slot it into the 10.1 inch dock.The inbuilt Adreno 320 graphics chip provides high quality images and does help to make pictures look vibrant on the Super IPS panel. The phone uses a micro SIMcard slot so be prepared to no longer use the normal sized ones anymore. There is the usual charging port at the bottom, the audio jack at the upper edge, but no expandable memory this time. You can get the phones at either 32GB or 64GB.In terms of software, the PadFone 2 comes with a barebones Ice Cream Sandwich and has some advanced tools meant for users who like to Flash their ROM. Sadly there is little support for it outside. While you have the option to change the way the phone works. Little external support for modifications will hamper its potential. One thing to note, the Asus’ Live Wallpaper is awesome.

The phone is LTE enabled and also has WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 for extra connectivity. Unfortunately Near-Field Communication is not implemented yet and while that technology is still new, it should have been a must have for it to beat down

the Galaxy Note 2 from Samsung.The camera on this phone boasts 13-megapixel quality and you can see the significant difference when you start taking pictures. The aperture of f2.4 also helps a lot. Among most smartphones today, excluding the Galaxy Camera, this is one of the better cameras.The PadFone 2 truly shines in its versatility of switching from phone to tablet. Even when you’re using an application halfway, the phone easily transits from small to big screen in a matter of seconds. The only time it doesn’t do that is when you’re on a web-browser. Something about changing from phone mode to tablet mode makes websites think you have switched from mobile to desktop.In the case of playing games, everything looks better on the bigger screen and it stays true for the PadFone 2. Battery life has also significantly improved, with the phone holding 2140mAH and the station holding an extra 5000 mAH.The PadFone 2 is definitely a lot more welcoming than the first PadFone and it is easy to fall in love with its versatility. That said, Asus could improve on the software offerings should it want to be a major phone contender. There is a lot to like about the PadFone 2 and yet there are some things you wish it had, like NFC and a more durable chassis, for you to think twice. If the next iteration called the PadFone 3 surpasses the PadFone 2 like it surpassed the PadFone 1, this is the handset to look out for.

Western Digital velociraptor 1TB review

The hard disk that’s actually meaner than WD’s Caviar Black is back with a massive size of 1TB. What’s interesting is that these range of hard disks now come in capacities of 250GB to 1TB but at 10,000 revolutions a minute, they stand in between normal hard disks(7,200 RPM) and the crazy fast solid-state drives.So the real question is, are you willing to spent more for a hard disk that promises to be faster than average, but still attain good storage? Or would you prefer to go the extreme end for high speed or high capacity. Just to bring in some comparisons, a 1TB SSD would cost you over $2000, instead of a few hundred dollars with the Velociraptor.

I’ll be honest the speed you get from a VelociRaptor is tangible. We got a sequential read and write of 213.9MBps and 138.7MBps, while the Caviar Black pulled 0.718 MBps read and 1.251MBps write, compared to 1.089MBps and 3.683MBps for the VelociRaptor. Performance wise it is no denying that you’ll get faster load speeds for your storage. Put them on a Raid 0 setup and you’ll watch them fly proudly.That said, the VelociRaptor does have an arch-nemesis, an SSD, which is a clear given. on the same tests, a 240GB Vertex 3 does 484.4MBps read and 305.8MBps write. Then again comparing these two drives is like giving the SSD an unfair advantage in terms of speed.

So it is clear that while the VelociRaptor was hailed as the fastest hard disks before the arrival of SSDs, it is still somewhat relevant today if you treasure capacity more than storage and yet still want decent output performance. These hard disks are a nice setup to go into Raid 0. However, if you’re thinking of getting a drive for your OS, stick with an SSD. The VelociRaptor is a good solution for massive storage.

The VelociRaptor 1TB will retail for SGD$429.99; 500 GB at SGD$289.99; and 250GB at SGD219.99.

A ragnarok Online 2 impressionswritten by Vynch, guild leader of Aetherius on the Einherjar server

Although claimed to be the sequel to Ragnarok Online, Ragnarok Online 2: Legend of the Second barely inherits the traits of its predecessor. It may have some noticeable similarities like the existence of Khara (Known as Kafra in RO2), map names like Prontera and Payon, and monster names, but it really is a different world altogether. Assassins do not dual-wield anymore, the Priests’ heal bombs do not affect monsters anymore, and Sorcerers can now revive dead players, have an area-of-effect heal and buffs - making them a staple class in late game dungeon parties.Levelling in RO2 relies a lot on quests and Khara Challenges.However, even with all the experience given, it barely brings you through all 50 levels, especially if the player has partied with others during normal questing. Players would most likely end up grinding the last few levels with the Monster Buster quest in Road of Bless.

Early game dungeons are easily cleared with the tank and spank formula, but that ends once you begin delving into the later dungeons. Unfortunately, the difficulty curve is not as steep as compared to other MMOs. Probably a good thing for casual players, not so much for veterans who are looking to torture themselves with a challenge.RO2’s late game content revolves around dungeon parties and raiding. Players would party for RHD (random hard dungeon) to farm for their gears and slowly move on to Garden of Baphomet for the best gears, or epic gears. In fact, there is no War of Emperium at this moment so end game content is very limited.Despite the game being in its “Live” phase, there are still plenty of bugs around and could be easily mistaken for a beta. Players are highly advised to store up Butterfly Wings in their inventory just so they can rescue themselves if they get stuck in some blind-spot. Lag is another big issue, especially in the evenings. You could barely kill monsters or even heal yourself with potions.Overall, RO2 isn’t that special if compared to the contemporary MMOs in the market, be it graphical or gaming wise. The game difficulty is very easy, suitable for players of all age and it is rather good for someone who just wanted to spend some time with their friends. For players opting for PvP and Wars, they will probably be disappointed here.