Manufacturer: Degauss Labs
Current Retail Price: 24.95 USD (one-button), 34.95 USD (three-button)

The headphone market these days is completely swamped with products of all shapes, sizes, and prices. While many of them are mediocre and interchangeable, there are brands like Dr. Dre’s beats and SkullCandy that have at least managed to make a name for themselves among the large corporations like Sony, Klipsch, Sennheiser, and Creative. Degauss Labs’ Pocket Couture (PC) line of headphones, while oozing with style from the packaging to the logo printed on their flat cable, are very obviously attempting to make a name for themselves by catching some of the sizable crowd of consumers flocking to the redesigned EarPods that Apple launched in late 2012. From the earbud design to the exact same price this smaller Swedish headphone company is aiming straight for the top of the midrange earbud market with its Pocket Coutures, but are they really a viable alternative to the intensely engineered Apple devices?  Read on to find out if we think the PCs successfully blend style with function.

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Manufacturer: Anker
Current Retail Price: $25.99

With the prevalence of computers in modern society, the kind of mouses and keyboards we use every day is becoming increasingly important.  Often times, especially if you use a computer to any moderate degree for school or work, you’re spending multiple hours every day interfacing with your computer, so the comfort of your peripherals, desk chair, or environment in general can make the difference between a pleasant and torturous day as well as the difference between health and chronic injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome.  Anker is attempting to assuage some of the strain related to working with computers with their new vertical mouse.  While not a brand new idea, Anker’s vertical mice are more widely available than their predecessors, and most importantly less than half of the average price of their competitors at $25.99.  Was the Anker 2.4G Wireless Vertical Ergonomic Optical Mouse able to change our perspective on mouse alignment or did it leave us with a case of vertigo?  Read on to find out.

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Manufacturer: Newer Technology
Current Retail Price: $57.99

“What does a desk lamp have to do with gaming?”, you may well ask.  I will answer with another question, “Where do you keep your gaming computer?”  Chances are that if you have a gaming PC tower it’s going to be on (or under) a desk.  Failing that, there should certainly be some part of some room in your home that at least occasionally needs to be illuminated beyond what light occurs there naturally.  This is where the NuGreen LED Desk Lamp comes in.  We’d been looking for a replacement for the old fashioned bankers lamp that had illuminated our PC gaming desk for quite some time and were intrigued when the NuGreen showed up on our doorstep.  Was our time with the NuGreen illuminating or did it leave us in the dark?  Read on to find out.

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USB hubs are certainly not bleeding edge technology, but with USB 3.0 becoming increasingly common in both computers and new USB devices the one or two USB 3.0 ports you get on your computers are hardly enough to run all of your speedy new USB 3.0 devices.  Luckily enough, USB 3.0 hubs have come down in price quite a bit lately, so there are many different kinds to choose from.  Anker was kind enough to send us a review unit of their “Uspeed USB 3.0 7 Port Hub + 1 Charging Port” that sports some interesting features including an external power plug and a special burgundy charging port that supplies an above-average number of amps to charge USB devices more expediently.   Did our testing of this USB hub leave us wired or tired?  Read on to find out.

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Anyone who maintains a gaming PC for more than a year or two will know that technology changes so quickly that you’re forever swapping various parts out of your tower to continue being able to play the latest games at a needlessly high but awesome 100 FPS or more.  With the advent of Solid State Drives (SSDs) that are quickly becoming more affordable, most PC gamers are bound to end up with a 3.5″ HDD or two that have been orphaned or re-purposed for archiving by a shiny new SSD.  Instead of having these drives collect dust or be assigned drive letter Q: and be rarely looked at, Newer Technology has come out with a simplified version of its Voyager Q SATA drive dock that drops FireWire 400/800 and eSATA support in favour of a much lower price point and a handy on/off switch.  Read on to find out if the Voyager S3 docked us like a hurricane.

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