You can never go wrong by purchasing SanDisk storage products. From memory cards to solid state drives, they are consistently excellent. Not only are the drives often quite fast, but more importantly, they are extremely reliable too. While not the only company making great flash storage products, I try to only use SanDisk SD cards in my camera when taking family photos -- the content is too important to lose.

SanDisk's Extreme and Extreme PRO Portable SSDs are quite popular thanks to their high-end performance and durable housings, and today, the company launches the next generation. Designated as "V2," both the Pro and non-Pro drives feature 256-bit AES hardware encryption and IP55 ratings for both water and dust resistance. SanDisk says both feature drop protection of up to 3 meters.

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Fedora 33 Beta was scheduled to be released during September, and on the eve of the final day of that month, the pre-release operating system is finally here! Yes, if you love Fedora and want to give an early version of 33 a try, today is your lucky day.

As you can imagine, Fedora 33 Beta comes with the excellent GNOME 3.38, which was only released a couple of weeks ago. The biggest change, however, is BTRFS being made the default filesystem -- ext4 is no longer the standard. Wow. Also significant? The new default editor is nano.

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Do laptops need to keep getting thinner and lighter? Oh, hell yeah. True, we are starting to get to the point where they really can't get any more svelte, but as engineers continue to show, they will keep working to push boundaries. For instance, today, Lenovo officially unveils an impossibly thin and light laptop that is sure to delight road warriors. Called "ThinkPad X1 Nano," it weighs less than two pounds and is just 0.55 inches thick.

The ThinkPad X1 Nano comes with some bleeding-edge technology such as Wi-Fi 6, optional 5G, and Thunderbolt 4 (two ports). It is powered by up to an 11th Generation Intel Core i7 processor, and it can be configured with up to 16GB RAM and up to a 1TB SSD. The 13-inch 2K display comes in both touch and non-touch options, and Lenovo promises up to 17.3 hours of battery life. And yes, the HD camera is compatible with Windows Hello.

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There are many different types of creators nowadays, such as vloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, and Twitch streamers. For some (if not most) of these media creators, audio quality is very important. And so, many of these people will invest in a nice microphone. Unfortunately, There are many of them on the market these days, making it hard to pick one.

Today, HyperX launches its latest microphone, and it sure is a beauty -- it should stand out in the crowded market. Called "QuadCast S," it is very similar to the company's existing QuadCast mic, but it has one big difference -- the addition of RGB lighting. Why does a microphone need colored lights that can be customized? It doesn't, but let's be honest, RGB lights are fun.

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When Amazon bought eero, many people were worried. After all, Amazon is a massive billion-dollar corporation -- there were legitimate concerns that the privacy of eero devices were in jeopardy. So far, however, eero has largely operated independently, and its routers and mesh systems are still very well received by consumers. In other words, it seems all the doom and gloom was probably for naught.

Earlier today, Amazon unveiled the all-new eero 6 Series. Like previous eero devices, the new 6 line ranges from a single router to multiple units that operate in conjunction to create a mesh network. If you aren't familiar with mesh networking, it is essentially a series of access points that work together -- under a single SSID -- to provide a lot of Wi-Fi coverage. What makes eero 6 different, is the use of Wi-Fi 6 (aka 802.11ax) for the first time. There are two models from which to choose -- eero 6 and eero Pro 6. Both have integrated Zigbee smart home hubs.

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Back in July, we told you that the Intel NUC 9 Extreme was finally available for purchase. This diminutive computer offers some impressive performance for such a small body. At just 5L, it is quite amazing what Intel was able to cram inside. Not only will it run Windows 10, but it will serve as a brilliant Linux box too.

Today, ADATA unveils the GAIA MINI PC under its XPG gaming brand. This computer is based on the aforementioned Intel NUC 9 Extreme Kit. Is it merely a rebadged computer? Yes and no. While ADATA did not design the PC at all, the XPG GAIA comes with 32GB of XPG RAM and a 2TB XPG SSD. In other words, it is an Intel NUC equipped with high-end ADATA XPG components. It also has the XPG logo emblazoned on the front.

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Lenovo's ThinkPad and ThinkStation computers are legendary. They are very well known for being well-built and reliable. That is why many businesses (and consumers) choose those computers for their needs. While these computers are mostly sold running Windows, the company has also been selling machines running Linux. Not only can you buy a Lenovo PC with Ubuntu preinstalled, but the company is even selling a laptop loaded with Fedora!

Showing it is a true friend of the Linux community, Lenovo has decided to expand its offering of computers running Ubuntu. Yes, folks, if you are a fan of that operating system, you can now buy these Linux computers from Lenovo.com globally -- they are no longer limited to enterprise customers. Anyone can buy them easily, and yes, this includes both ThinkStation desktops and ThinkPad laptops.

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Windows 7 and Windows 10 aren't terrible operating systems. In fact, they are both very good. With that said, the newest version of Windows 10 has many bugs. Unfortunately, since Windows 7 is no longer supported, its users are stuck in a conundrum. They have to decide whether to use an unsupported Windows 7 or upgrade to Windows 10 that is full of telemetry and other "spying" that passes their information to Microsoft's servers. That is a very difficult decision.

Thankfully, there is a better option -- just switch to Linux! Yes, modern Linux-based operating systems will be supported (unlike the now-obsolete Windows 7) and most will run great on aging hardware (unlike Windows 10). Linux Lite is one of the best Linux distributions for Windows-switchers, as it is lightweight, modern, and familiar.

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The solid state drive market is getting very exciting lately, with many manufacturers releasing PCIe 4.0-based drives. Just yesterday, we told you about a new model from ADATA. With a compatible motherboard/computer, you can achieve speeds that make SATA SSDs look downright pathetic.

Today, Samsung finally releases a PCIe 4.0 SSD for consumers. Called "980 PRO," it promises truly impressive speeds. Most importantly, it should be very reliable, as Samsung solid state drives have proven to last -- this is why many system builders swear by them (including me).

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Want to know a secret? Solid state drives can get hot. Very hot, actually. Super-fast M.2 drives in particular can generate quite a bit of heat, so sometimes, manufacturers will put heatsinks on them. Are these heat spreaders "snake oil" rather than something truly useful? Believe it ort not, no. Not only will a heatsink help the drive to last longer, but it can improve performance too. You see, when the drive gets hot, its read and write speeds can throttle down. By adding some metal to pull away some of the heat, your drive can perform better when under heavy load.

Today, ADATA launches its latest solid state drive, and it is a speed demon. Called "GAMMIX S70," this NVMe PCIe Gen4x4 M.2 2280 SSD is being released under the company's XPG brand, which is designed for gamers and enthusiasts. The drive is so insanely fast, that ADATA has put an absolutely massive heatsink on it. The company calls it "CoolArmor," and it claims the "terraced" design will allow it to provide superior cooling. While I don't doubt it will do a great job keeping heat at bay, I do worry that its huge heatsink may make it impossible to fit inside some computers -- it could end up impeding the installation of other components, such as a GPU. You can, of course, forget about putting it into any laptop.

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Laptop trackpads have gotten much better over the years, but let's be honest -- nothing beats a quality mouse. Whether you use a laptop running Windows, Linux, or macOS, a wireless mouse should be part of your life.

Logitech is one of the best makers of mice, and today, the company launches its newest pointing device. Called "MX Anywhere 3," this wireless compact mouse offers DPI options ranging from 200 to 4,000. It can connect over Bluetooth, but if you prefer, it also comes with one of Logitech's unifying USB receivers. It has two thumb buttons, which can be programmed to do pretty much anything, but I like them for forward and back in web browsers. Best of all, the scroll wheel has a dedicated button, allowing you to switch between ratcheted and smooth/fast scrolling.

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USB flash drives are "old hat" in 2020, right? Yes and no. True, they are no longer particularly interesting, but they are still quite necessary for some people. While cloud storage has largely made them irrelevant to the average consumer, there are still many cases where one is necessary. I like to use them for operating system installations, for instance -- I keep Windows and Linux install drives at the ready. Believe it or not, many businesses and education institutions still rely on USB flash drives too.

For whatever reason, I still have a big place in my heart for USB flash drives, so when a new  model is announced, I get interested. Transcend has released a new such drive, and while it looks fairly unremarkable, it is worth noticing for its impressive speed and build quality. Called "JetFlash 920," it uses the USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface, which is just a fancy way of saying USB 3.0. With that said, it can do up to 420MB/s read and 400MB/s write -- not bad at all. It also features an aluminum body for improved cooling and durability. Unfortunately, it does utilize a cap to protect the USB-A connector -- I prefer capless designs as there is no cap to lose. A cap is hardly the end of the world, however.

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If you don't have a Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) router, you are not living your life properly. Look, even if you don't have any Wi-Fi 6 devices yet, you can score such a router for as low as $79.99. Seriously, folks, its time to upgrade your aging wireless networking gear already.

For those of you hardcore gamers looking to upgrade to Wi-Fi 6, NETGEAR has a new router that is sure to tickle your fancy. The "Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR1000," as it is called, runs DumaOS 3.0 -- a gaming-optimized firmware and interface. Not only will you benefit from the power of 802.11ax, but DumaOS will allow you to tune things to best meet your online gaming needs.

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The GNOME 3 desktop environment was officially released in 2011, and in 2020 we are still on version 3.x. Yeah, despite many massive changes over the last (almost) decade, we have been stuck with point releases for GNOME 3. For instance, just yesterday, GNOME 3.38 was released. Historically, the stable releases all ended in even numbers, with pre-release versions ending odd. For fans of the DE, such as yours truly, we have simply learned to live with this odd versioning scheme.

Well, folks, with the next version of GNOME, the developers have finally decided to move on from version 3.x. You are probably thinking the new version will be 4.0, but you'd be very wrong. Actually, following GNOME 3.38 will be GNOME 40. Wait, what? Yes, the developers are actually moving from 3.x to 40.x! They are even ditching the even/odd aspect, as the next major stable version to come after 40 will be 41. Minor stable updates will be given incremental point designations (.1, .2, .3, etc.). During development, there will just be alpha, beta, and release candidates -- nice and simple. Understandably, this is going to be confusing for some Linux users that are used to the old versioning scheme.

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All solid state drives are fast -- when compared to mechanical hard drives. With that said, not all SSDs are created equally. SATA based SSDs are the slowest amongst them, with PCIe-based drives being the fastest. Of course, there are different generations of PCIe that have gotten continually faster. Currently, consumers have access to some computers and motherboards with PCIe Gen 4.0.

For those of you with PCIe Gen 4.0 systems, there is a new solid state drive from ADATA that you should definitely check out. Called "GAMMIX S50 Lite," the PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 SSD is being offered under the company's gamer/enthusiast "XPG" brand.

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