Review Roundup: This week&#39;s hottest reviews on TechRadar

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar

This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar

Has the economy suddenly picked up? This week we got our hands on the fantastic 60-inch, 3D-capable and Smart TV-enabled UE60D8000 from Samsung, which doesn't come cheap at £4,300, and then the £1,000+ Asus MARS II Limited Edition graphics card landed on our desk.

At the other end of the spectrum we were impressed with the Samsung PL120, which can be picked up for under £100 and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro, which is both small in price and size.

Read on for this week's most popular reviews on TechRadar.

Samsung UE60D8000 review

When Samsung gave us exclusive access to its brand new flagship LCD TV, we were excited. It's hard not to be excited by these new Samsungs - just look at them. There's almost no bezel at all, which means the picture goes right to the very edge of the TV. The gorgeous looks are backed up by an equally gorgeous watching experience.

Both 2D and 3D pictures are handled excellently and once you've experienced its mind-blowing big screen images, mesmerising design and class-leading smart functionality you'll be hunting around for £4,300 so you can own one. And if you can't raise that much cash, you can always check out the 55-inch or 46-inch versions.

Asus MARS II Limited Edition review

Combining two Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 chips on one card, the Asus MARS II is by some distance the fastest and most powerful graphics card in existence. It weighs the same as six elephants, is bigger than a double decker bus and is probably worth more than your car. In certain benchmarks, the MARS II is 20 per cent quicker than any other card, although at times two GTX 580s in SLI come close.

It's not just the performance that impresses us, it's the temperature management and build quality. With a three-figure price tag it was never going to be a consumer's champion, but there's a lot on offer here for overclockers and modders beyond simply raw performance.

BlackBerry Torch 9860 review

When is a BlackBerry not a BlackBerry? How about when the BlackBerry in question has no physical keyboard and is in fact RIM's first proper touchscreen smartphone? Yep, the BlackBerry Torch 9860 marks RIM's first foray into pure touchscreen control, without any of the SurePress shenanigans of the Storm 2 or the slide-out keyboard of the Torch 9800 and 9810.

With the improvements of BlackBerry OS 7 and better specs across the board, the result is largely a success. It's a slick package from afar, but using the BlackBerry Torch 9860 after the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S2, HTC Sensation or iPhone 4 feels like going back to 2009.

BlackBerry torch 9860

Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro review

So, just as Sony Ericsson accompanied its X10 Mini with the X10 Mini Pro in 2010, this year's excellent new Xperia Mini is now accompanied by a heavier, sturdier model of the same size, the Xperia Mini Pro. The new smartphone also has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for those of you still stubbornly refusing to go 100% touchscreen

Samsung PL120 review

For £100, this is a camera that you'll get a lot of use out of, from holidays to updating your profile picture on Facebook. The tiny size means that it'll simply fit into a pocket when it's not being used and the price means if it does get broken, it doesn't cost the earth to replace.

Samsung pl120