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24 Jun 2025

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This ultra-powerful Ryzen 7 mini PC with 32GB of RAM is 23% off
If you’re going to upgrade your computer, then you might as well get a mini PC these days because they’re a lot smaller, just as powerful, and more affordable. The Geekom AX8 Max is currently 23% off at Amazon, which means you can purchase it for $579 instead of the usual $749. The beautiful thing about this mini PC is that it’s not just going to be a good choice for work, but also for leisure since the built-in Radeon 780M graphics card will enable you to play some games. That’s one of the most powerful integrated graphics solutions around. While you can’t expect to play games with the graphics pushed at max level, you can still have some fun (as long as you temper your expectations!). You’ll also use the mini PC for work and your daily internet activities just fine. There’s a speedy AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS CPU on board and it comes loaded with a massive 32GB of DDR5 RAM. Now that’s a speedy combo that will serve you well day after day. It also doesn’t hurt that it features a 1TB SSD because that’s a ton of storage space! Plus, if you really want a speedier device, you can upgrade to 96GB of RAM and 4TB of storage without issue. Connectivity won’t be an issue with this mini PC because there are two USB4 type-C ports and two HDMI ports available, so you can hook up to four 8K screens. There are also tons of other ports for peripherals and data transfers, and even an audio jack if you want to take the old-fashioned approach to listening to music. So, snag this uber-powerful mini PC for $579 while this deal still lasts. Keep in mind this is a Prime deal, so you’ll need to have a Prime subscription to access it, which you can get with a 30-day free trial. Timing is perfect because Prime Day is coming July 8th to 11th with a gazillion discounts. Get a mini PC for 23% offBuy now at Amazon

Lexar NQ780 review: An affordable SSD with a kick
At a glanceExpert's Rating Pros Good PCIe 5.0, host memory buffer performance Fastest native-writing QLC NAND we’ve seen Affordable Cons Still slows to 450MBps writing natively Our Verdict Up against some stiff competition, the Lexar NQ780 proved itself with aplomb. Buy it at the right price. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Lexar NQ780 SSD Retailer Price $73.25 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket I love it when new stuff shows up, and from the faster native-write performance and much larger TBW rating, the QLC NAND inside the Lexar NQ780 reviewed here seems to be new to the party. Woohoo! Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best SSDs for comparison. What are the Lexar NQ780’s features? Lexar’s NQ780, NVMe 2.0, 2280 (22mm wide, 80mm long) SSD uses the PCIe 4.0 transfer protocol (x4). And as you might guess from the Q in the model name, it uses stacked QLC NAND. The controller is an Innogrit IG5326. The design uses host memory buffer (system memory) for primary caching, so there’s no DRAM on board. The flipside of the NQ780. Lexar warranties the NQ780 for five years and/or 600TBW (terabytes that may be written) per terabyte of capacity. Write more than that (unlikely) and the warranty is dead –though not necessarily the drive. You won’t lose data when the percentage used reaches 100 percent, just the ability to write more. By the way, that’s a very high TBW rating for QLC NAND, which usually is in the 200- to 250TBW region. That reinforces my belief that this is a new type of QLC. How much is the Lexar NQ780? At the time of this writing you could glom onto a 4TB (tested) NQ780 for $290, a 2TB for $150, and a 1TB for $80. That’s about standard for bargain SSDs, but not outstandingly cheap. How fast is the Lexar NQ780? I’m always happy when faster NAND shows up, especially QLC NAND, as in Lexar’s NQ780. It nearly tripled what I normally see from quad-level cell flash memory writes, though it could of course be a controller trick. All NVMe SSDs are fast. That said, the 4TB NQ780 placed about middle of the pack in performance. It ranked third out of six HMB/QLC SSDs, 13th out of all 32 HMB SSDs, and 39th out of the 57 NVMe SSDs of all types that I’ve tested. It more than held its own in CrystalDiskMark 8’s sequential testing, though. The NQ780’s CrystalDiskMark 8 random performance was good, but behind the pack, and way short of the WD Black SN7100. The 48GB transfer times were also good, if not record-setting. Writing 450GB took the NQ780 just over two and a half minutes — within shouting distance of the Kingston NV3, which was the fastest of the listed drives. The other being the Teamgroup MP44Q. Note that the WD uses TLC NAND. While it’s not the fastest drive listed here, the NQ780 is easily fast enough for most purposes and the native write rate (secondary write as SLC cache is exhausted) is two to four times that which I’ve seen from other QLC NAND SSDs. See the image below. The NQ780’s native write rate (secondary write as SLC cache is exhausted) is two to four times that what I’ve seen from other QLC NAND SSDs. Should you buy the Lexar NQ780? Given the right price, I wouldn’t say no to the NQ780, with it’s newly faster-off-cache QLC NAND. While it’s not the speediest kid on the block, it is affordable. How we test Our storage tests currently utilize Windows 11 (22H2) 64-bit running on a Z790 (PCIe 5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 modules (64GB of memory total). Intel integrated graphics are used. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an ImDisk RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB, which also contains the operating system. Each test is performed on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that as any drive fills up, performance will decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, and other factors. The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped as well as the capacity tested. SSD performance can vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to read/write across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching (writing TLC/QLC as SLC). Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report (systems being roughly equal), by all means — let us know.

I used folio cases on my phone for 10 years. This $28 accessory changed everything
About 10 years ago, I gave up on carrying a dedicated wallet and went for a folio phone case—the kind that opens and closes like a book—with slots for my cards and wrap-around protection for my Moto G. In the years since, I’ve reviewed so many phones and changed my personal device so many times, but continued on using phone cases that doubled as my wallet. Unfortunately, that has also meant picking through the limited folio case options available for certain phones. But last year, I found the ESR Grip Wallet Stand and it’s been a serious game-changer for me. This versatile 3-in-1 accessory expands what my phone can do while simplifying my pockets. Mark Knapp / Foundry For starters, it’s a grip. It magnetically attaches to the phone—quite strongly, to my surprise—and offers a small finger loop that I can use to hold my phone comfortably for long stretches. It’s like a PopSocket, except it flattens almost completely when not in use, plus it looks far classier than the awkward knob-style design of PopSockets. It’s also a wallet that can store several cards. On the front, it can hold two cards with a little cutout that lets me push them out with ease. On the inside, it has room for my ID and health insurance card in one pocket, plus my Costco card and a few bills in another pocket. One of these pockets has a transparent window that’s convenient for flashing ID without having to dig it out—or, in my case, flashing my Costco card. Both pockets also have cutouts to make card extraction easy. And though it isn’t hard to get the cards out, I find they stay in pretty well too. Mark Knapp / Foundry And lastly, it’s a kickstand. The wallet design has a strong hinge that holds the two halves together, so when the wallet is opened, it doubles as a stand. The stand can be used in both vertical and horizontal orientations, allowing me to keep my phone in portrait mode for alerts and notifications or landscape mode for watching videos. This accessory is MagSafe-compatible, so it works right out of the box for modern iPhone owners, but it also works with Android phones that have MagSafe cases. With MagSafe ready to go, I can just slap ESR’s product onto the back of my phone—and whenever I change phones, I can transfer it over to the new device effortlessly, bringing over everything inside without having to rejigger my entire wallet setup again. Mark Knapp / Foundry While I do miss folio cases for my phones—they’re more protective when I accidentally drop them—I won’t be going back because the ESR Grip Wallet Stand also solves some of my gripes with folio cases. If I just want to take my phone somewhere without all my cards and cash with it, like to the gym, I don’t have to pry it out of its case. I can simply snap off the wallet and leave the whole thing behind. The same goes for putting my phone in a car mount for GPS or holding the phone for photos. I can do it all in the blink of an eye by detaching the accessory in one fell swoop, and I can easily tuck it away in my pocket for later. All of this convenience from a simple $28 accessory felt like a no-brainer when I first came across it, and I love that it’s so easy to transfer from phone to phone. I highly recommend it! Get the ESR Grip Wallet Stand for only $28Buy now at Amazon