By: Jonathan Kwan
July 26, 2024
Despite more Calgarians realizing the necessity of air conditioners in recent times, I realize many people here do not think too much about the placement of their outdoor unit. I know it is important because where I lived previously, the outdoor unit was placed in the sideyard near the center of the house. The house was only 1600 sqft built in 2003, and the AC was from the same era, meaning not only is the compressor insanely loud by modern standards, but you can feel and hear it from every living space inside the house all day long -- it drives me absolutely nuts. I moved last year, and one of the first things I shopped for was for central AC. I was initially very adverse to the idea of installing the unit in my sideyard again due to my past experience, especially considering my new house is on a zero lot line, and any traditional top discharge model will basically block access to the backyard from my front yard. However, after evaluating different AC models and placement locations, I ended up choosing a slim side discharge model and have it installed in my sideyard anyway. I was very pleased with the end results. For noise, I have seen gaming PCs that are louder even when standing next to it outside. For form factor, the slim design allowed me to enjoy a comfortable environment inside my house without blocking access through my sideyard or reducing the usability of my backyard. This shows how important form factor can be. In the same way, SSDs are a necessity in pretty much all electronics with storage, but not all of them have unlimited real estate to accommodate them. How do we get fast, high capacity storage into these devices? The M.2 2230 specification has been around for a long time, but good NVMe models have been challenging to find until recently. I looked at the M.2 2230 WD_BLACK SN770M 2TB a few weeks back, and today we have yet another one of this kind in our labs, the Lexar PLAY 1TB. How will it stack up? Read on to find out!
Our review unit of the Lexar PLAY 1TB arrived in a folded bubble envelope from the company's public relations firm Brea, California, USA in reasonably good condition using DHL Express Worldwide for our review today. As always from Lexar using DHL, the package was taped as "security checked", just like everything we have received from them in the past.
Our review unit of the Lexar PLAY 1TB arrived in its retail packaging. The PLAY's retail box has the same design theme Lexar's other products, which means it is predominantly black with red highlights and white text. Lexar's logo is at the top left corner, while the product name and description is placed next to it. The SSD's rated speed and capacity are printed along the bottom. In the prime real estate across the center is a photo of the NVMe SSD in three-quarter view. The background are color gradients of what looks like illuminated surfaces. More branding and product description in various languages can be found on the remaining sides of the box.
Before we move on, let us take a look at the specifications of the Lexar PLAY 1TB, as obtained from the manufacturer's website:
Capacities: 1TB
Form Factor: M.2 2230
Interface: PCIe Gen4x4
Speed: 1TB—Sequential Read up to 5200MB/s, Sequential Write Speed up to 4700MB/s
Operating Temperature: 0°C to 70°C (32°F to 158°F)
Storage Temperature: -40°C to 85°C (-40°F to 185°F)
Dimensions (L x W x H): 30 x 22 x 2.45 mm / 1.18" x 0.87" x 0.10"
Weight: 3.21g
Warranty: Five-year limited warranty
Shock-resistant: 1500G, duration 0.5ms, Half Sine Wave
Vibration-resistant: 10~2000Hz, 1.5mm, 20G, 1 Oct/min, 30min/axis (X,Y,Z)
TBW: 600TB
MTBF: 1,500,000 Hours
Opening the box reveals the Lexar PLAY 1TB itself placed on a transparent plastic tray behind a clear plastic shell and a quick installation and warranty guide. This is it -- out of the box, you will get the absolutely bare minimum. Not that we need anything else, of course.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look, Test System
3. Benchmark: AIDA64 Disk Benchmark
4. Benchmark: ATTO Disk Benchmark
5. Benchmark: Crystal Disk Mark 8.0
6. Benchmark: HD Tune Pro 5.70
7. Benchmark: PassMark PerformanceTest 10
8. Benchmark: PCMark 10
9. Benchmark: 3DMark
10. Conclusion
