Podnutz Episode 48: Ryan Shrout And PC Perspective

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Ryan Shrout from PC Perspective joins Steve McLaughlin and Steve Cherubino to discuss his site and why his site is valuable to computer repair techs.

Running time: 49:41
Added: 14 Mar 2010

PC Perspective’s ‘About’ page

PC Perspective began in 2004 is an enthusiast and PC Gamers review website reviewing Video cards, motherboards, processors, notebooks and netbooks, SSD’s and other hardware to help users make a wise purchasing decision before buying hardware.

Newegg and Amazon have the best user reviews and best user review community.

Pcper.com started out as k7m.com. K7m was one of the first slot Athlon motherboards from Asus back in the day. Then the site became amdmb.com. Changed to PC Perspective after graduating college.

PCPer has reviewers who are specialized in dedicated categories

Average review process varies from product to product, ranging from 5-6 hours for Hard Drive or SSD testing to a few days or more.

The SSD Decoder Page displays information regarding various SS Drives

Ryan’s opinion of the best SSD Drives:

Desktop PCs – Intel X25-M G2 at Newegg

Notebook PCs – OCZ Agility at Newegg

SSD drives should be SATA2 to take advantage of increased performance

SSD’s still an enthusiast product until prices come down.

Common practice is to use SSD for OS and applications and a standard spinning hard drive for data storage.

Estimated boot times with SSD as boot drive vary from system to system, but should be a dramatic difference.

Using SSD/Standard drive combination is much like the Hybrid Drives rumored a few years ago.

The Hardware Leader Board – An excellent resource for system builders, giving hardware picks for different levels of computer systems.

Ryan worked for a small ‘Mom and Pop’ computer store in Florence, KY in high school and college. That’s how he got into reviewing computer hardware.

The Asus K7m motherboard was sold in a plain white box with little support, mainly due to Intel dominance.

Ryan recommends Newegg for purchasing hardware, but don’t trust their prices blindly. Shop around alternate options like NCIX, ZipZoomFly, TigerDirect, and Amazon.

Ryan’s opinion of the iPad –

  • A larger version of the iPod Touch
  • For people who love their iPhones but wish to have better experience.
  • Not a replacement for Laptops and Netbooks.
  • Not very portable due to size, better used in the home, while watching TV or sitting around the house.
  • Does not think it will be as popular as iPod or iPhone.

 

Ryan’s opinion of Entourage Edge

  • Saw it at CES
  • Mix of E-Ink and LCD is a good idea.
  • Can the creators get the content that Apple can get?

 

Ryan’s second podcast can be found at www.PCPer.com/podcast.

  • A weekly discussion of hardware reviews and articles from the previous week
  • Coleen from Twit commonly featured on show
  • Live On the TWiT Network, Wednesdays at 10pm

 

PCPer is considered a top tier hardware review site so they get new hardware earlier that official launch for review.

What is the latest hardware that Ryan likes.

  • New SSD’s
  • 30” Apple Cinema LCD Panels
  • AMD Ifinity Video Card Technology
  • NVidia’s new 3D Vision Technology

 

Ryan expects to see a re-birth of PC Gaming

WiDi – Wireless Display creates unique wireless network between your laptop and a Netgear or Dlink device that sits on your TV and plugs into your HDMI port.

Ryan does not have kids, so he does not have to feed them waffles…

Steve discusses his Media Center PC, Need for a good keyboard.

  • Ryan agrees that there are no good keyboards and remotes out there
  • Boxee Box Remote has a QWERTY keypad on the backside of the device

 

Be sure to check out www.PCPer.com

Shownotes prepared by Randy Smith of www.TechGuy911.com