2018

The Tech Landscape Has Become Rather Odd

With

the change in scheduling that started this month, we’ve taken to opportunity to bring you a bumper tech section this month, with all manner of gear for most budgets, from a 1070 Ti roundup to high end laptops, to the biggest, widest monitor we’ve ever seen. This year is shaping up to be a very curious one when it comes to tech. The OLED revolution we have been hoping to see in monitors still seems to be on the horizon, and videocards, whilst getting more powerful, are continually increasing in price thanks to bitcoin mining. That, of course, could change overnight if Samsung can actually deliver on their promise of an efficient and fast mining chip.

One thing that definitely seems to be happening is that gaming laptops are getting cheaper without compromising on quality. The Acer Helios 300 reviewed this issue is a fabulous machine delivering very good gaming performance for under $2k while still remaining extremely portable and practical as a work machine. If this trend keeps up it will be very exciting. Similarly, we tested our first optical switch keyboard this issue and that too was very exciting, not just because it was a first for us, but also because the keyboard is priced significantly cheaper than its peers. We don’t know if this pricing is product specific or is a factor of the components, but if it’s the latter we could start seeing cheaper premium keyboards hitting the market. Prices coming down is always good.