Razer BlackShark V2 Pro (2023) Review

The 2023 update to the Razer BlackShark Pro more than doubles the battery life.

Pros
+Great microphone
+Very comfortable
+70 hour battery life
+Competitive esports EQ profiles
Cons
-No simultaneous audio from Bluetooth/2.4GHz wireless
-Yokes seem flimsy despite being reinforced
-No analog connection

The new BlackShark V2 Pro is a wireless over-ear (circumaural) headset with a detachable boom microphone. Its design is largely the same as that of the original BlackShark V2 Pro. It features a padded, leatherette-covered headband with Razer’s logo debossed across the top, stainless steel sliders, plastic earcups, and fabric-covered memory foam earpads. It comes in both black and white colorways. Tthe black version is entirely black, while the white version has some black elements (black padding on the headband/earpads, black earcups sliders, and a black microphone arm).

The BlackShark V2 Pro is fairly lightweight — the new version weighs the same as its predecessor: 11.29 ounces (320g). This is around the same weight as the wireless SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 (11.46oz / 325g), though it’s not as light as the wired SteelSeries Arctis Nova 1 (8.3oz / 235g). It’s also lighter than the Razer Barracuda Pro (12oz / 340g), though not by much.

The BlackShark V2 Pro’s black plastic earcups are attached to the headband via stainless steel sliders — thin, exposed spokes that definitely look a little flimsy. The earcups slide up and down these spokes for height adjustment. It’s a smooth, easy adjustment. The earcups don’t stay in place when you take the headset off, but it’s so easy to slide them into position when you put the headset back on that this didn’t bother me too much. One of the improvements Razer’s made to the new headset is reinforcing these sliders. And while the headset feels sturdy enough overall, I’d still be wary of tossing this in a bag without a rigid protective case. The earcups tilt but do not swivel (though there’s moderate flexibility for side-to-side movement), so this headset does not fold flat.

The BlackShark V2 Pro’s headband and earpads are padded with soft memory foam covered in Razer’s mesh FlowKnit fabric, which is designed to reduce sweat and help you stay cool. It’s a mesh athletic-wear-looking weave, so this claim seems pretty reasonable.

Most of the BlackShark V2 Pro’s controls and ports are on its left earcup, including a prominent volume knob, a 3.5mm boom microphone jack, a USB-C charging port, a power button, and a microphone mute switch. This is one area in which the new headset is pretty different from the original BlackShark V2 Pro. The original headset had an additional 3.5mm jack for plugging in an AUX cable, but Razer’s done away with wired connections on this new iteration.

The headset comes with a 2.4GHz wireless dongle, a 5-foot (1.5m) USB-C to USB-A cable, a 5-foot (1.5m) USB extender, and a detachable boom microphone with removable pop filter.

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Gigabyte Aorus 10000 SSD Review

The Gigabyte Aorus 10000 is a good alternative for an early adopter PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD. It arrives with an optional, robust heatsink and is otherwise a solid entry. Performance is higher than the previous-generation 4.0 drives, but there’s more of this high speed on the way.

Pros
+Fast sequential performance
+Solid all-around performance
+Nice included heatsink
+DirectStorage optimization

Cons
-Pricing remains uncertain
-Performance leap over 4.0 is generally underwhelming
-Poor power efficiency
-Faster drives on the way

The Gigabyte Aorus 10000 was one of the first PCie 5.0 NVMe SSDs to be announced. It stands apart with an included optional heatsink, which has aesthetic appeal. With performance that peaks at 10 GB/s of sequential throughput, this drive has plenty of horsepower for demanding workloads.

Gigabyte traditionally markets its SSDs to OEMs, and the Aorus 10000 is difficult to find at the time of review. Since the drive comes bare with the optional heatsink included, this could be a good choice if you want to use your own cooling solution or run multiple drives. However, it is not recommended to operate the drive bare, so laptops are generally out of the target applications. Gigabyte also offers additional software support for this drive which helps gives it a leg up over products like the Inland TD510.

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Review Corsair MP600 Pro LPX SSD

The Corsair MP600 Pro LPX is a forgettable high-end PCIe 4.0 SSD that underperforms and runs inefficiently. It does stay cool, at least, and would be a good fit for a PlayStation 5, but its pricing leaves something to be desired and keeps it from being among the best PS5 SSDs. Corsair offers software support with a fair warranty but they have several other SKUs that do what this drive does, but better. There are also plenty of competing products that can match or beat this drive for less money and for everyday use there are far more affordable products. The LPX seems like an afterthought at the end of the day.

The Corsair MP600 Pro LPX is available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, at $57.99, $84.99, $154.99, and $464.99 at the time of review. The 2TB model has the most compelling price. Generally we recommend going for at least 1TB these days, especially for high-end drives, but it is nice to have a 500GB option. Corsair warranties this drive for 350TB, 700TB, 1,400TB, and 3,000TB written for each capacity, respectively, for up to five years.

This drive can reach up to 7,100 / 6,800 MBps for sequential reads and writes and up to 1000K / 1200K IOPS for random reads and writes. These numbers suggest that the LPX is based on newer TLC, which isn’t surprising as the old 96-Layer TLC is passé at this point.

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Review Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8TB SSD

Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus family has long been a favorite for performance seekers, but the new 8TB model ups the ante with extreme capacity courtesy of 112-layer BiCS5 flash, promising to take high-performance, high-capacity SSD storage to the next level as it vies for a spot on our list of Best SSDs.

Sabrent made a name for itself in the SSD market with the original Rocket, a ubiquitous SSD based on Phison’s competitive E12 SSD controller. The company has since enhanced its portfolio with an array of new drives, including the Rocket 4.0 and models with QLC flash, like the Rocket Q and the Rocket Q4.

But perhaps Sabrent is best known for its penchant for pushing the capacity limits with SSDs like the 4TB Rocket, the 8TB Rocket Q, and the 16TB Thunderbolt dock that includes two 8TB SSDs. The Rocket Q Battleship also hosts up to eight of those 8TB drives with a HighPoint RAID controller, providing a total of 64TB of flash storage.

However, plenty of demanding users want higher capacities with their consumer SSDs but don’t want to compromise with lower-endurance and lower-performance QLC flash. So if the drive can use TLC flash and still push the limits of PCIe 4.0 technology, all the better. Those users are in luck as Sabrent now offers this 8TB version of the high-performance Rocket 4 Plus, and it comes with 112-layer BiCS5 TLC flash that the company didn’t use in the original SKUs.

Putting this much storage capacity, especially with TLC flash, on an M.2 drive has lots of challenges that require tough design decisions to ensure the drive is reliable and remains within spec. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see a company willing to reach this high on the capacity front.

The 8TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus is a standard M.2 2280, PCIe 4.0/NVMe 1.4 drive. It’s rated for up to 7/6 GBps of sequential read/write throughput, which is a comparatively slight 100/600 MBps slower than the 4TB model. The SDD is rated for 700,000 random read IOPS and a peak of 1,000,000 IOPS for random writes.

This drive has a nominal one-year warranty that you can extend to five years with registration. Endurance matches expectations at 6PBW (petabytes written), meaning it can absorb 6 petabytes of write data. Even with 8TB of flash, that’s more than enough for the vast majority of users.

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Restore Classic Context Menu in Windows 11

The right-click context menu for Desktop and File Explorer has been redesigned in Windows 11 to have a modern look, but with limited functionality when compared to Windows 10’s menu. The new context menu has a minimalistic design but can be confusing for those accustomed to Windows 10. You can quickly bring back the classic right-click context menu on Windows 11 in just a few clicks:

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Customize the Windows 11 Taskbar

This Registry hack is for users who want to customize the Windows 11 Taskbar to their liking. With some minor Registry value changes, you can resize the Taskbar and move the Taskbar to the top or side of the screen.These options are not available through the Windows Settings page, but the Registry Editor allows you to make these changes manually.

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Speed up shutdown time using regedit

When you shut down your PC, Windows gives a bit of time to running applications to save their data before it force closes them. This ensures that no unsaved app data is lost and no app functions get corrupted due to force stopping in the middle of working.

However, if faster shutdown matters to you and you have the good habit of closing all apps and saving data before you shut down, then you can decrease this timer to speed up shutdown.

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