A new research report has concluded that 63% of households with residential security equipment in the US are now considering buying a smart home device in the next 12 months compared to 40% of broadband internet-using households. Therefore, it seems that the trend toward integration with assistants such as Amazon Alexa among home-grade security OEMs is paying off in that respect.

Finding a decent laptop for under $500 USD is like walking into a field of landmines as OEMs will often cut deep corners or hide important drawbacks from potential buyers. This IdeaPad S340 15 deal isn't perfect, but it's one of the better laptops you can find for under $500.

Tipster @patrickschur_ reports that an AIB Radeon RX 6800 XT part boosts to 2.5 GHz and beyond when running 3DMark 11. The sample was listed as an engineering sample, indicating that retail clocks could go even higher.

According to a recent leak, NVIDIA is prepping multiple mobility-focused Ampere graphics cards. These include, among others, the GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q, GeForce RTX 3070 Max-Q, and GeForce 3060 Max-Q. Questions remain, though, about performance and power consumption.

A battery life test by Arun Maini of the YouTube channel Mrwhosetheboss found that the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max had significant leads in battery runtimes compared to the newer iPhone 12 and 12 Pro. The iPhone 12 and 12 Pro have a 2,815 mAh battery, which is not only lower in terms of actual capacity than the previous generation but also powers larger and higher resolution displays leading to lower runtimes.

iQOO has launched the uncharacteristically budget U1x smartphone in China. With its Snapdragon 662 SoC, relatively small HD display and 5000mAh battery, it should get a lot of screen-on time, at least. It has debuted alongside a new RAM/storage option for the more premium Dimensity 1000+-powered Z1.

New sales data from Mindfactory has revealed the continued success story that is AMD Ryzen. The top 13 places are occupied by Ryzen CPUs, with the evergreen Ryzen 5 3600 still selling by the truckload. With the Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 series launching soon, and rumors of a Ryzen 5 5600 for next year, Team Red will likely go from strength to strength.

More users of Xiaomi smartphones have been reporting issues with battery drain after installing the MIUI 12 update. The problem had already been mentioned on social media in connection to devices like the Redmi Note 8 Pro and Xiaomi Mi 9, with POCO F1 owners also recently complaining about the hitch. Xiaomi may address the issue with future firmware builds.

Xiaomi and Amazfit appear to be preparing an update for a number of their wearables that will allow the devices to take their user’s temperature. The fitness trackers that could end up receiving such a firmware update include the Mi Band 5 and other SKUs from the Mi Band line and the Amazfit Band 5, which comes with blood oxygen level measurement.

The iPhone 12 series comes with dedicated components to support the new MagSafe system, which consists of a range of magnetic accessories, a compact wireless charger included. Now, it has emerged that this product may permanently disfigure the leather cases the OEM has designed for the same mobile devices.

Some evidence of Samsung's next-gen super-budget smartphones has appeared in a new tip. It concerns a phone thought to be called the Galaxy A02s, which appears to be a 3GB RAM version of the also-rumored Galaxy A02. Oddly, however, the new benchmarking leaks for both possible phones lack SoC data.

New smartphones are constantly outbidding each other with ever faster displays. The newest example is the OnePlus 8T. But do 120-Hz panels really make sense in a smartphone?

ARM's newest Mali-G78 GPU has been tested alongside the Kirin 9000 on a Huawei Mate 40, and the results look alarming. Although the GPU manages to hit 1 TFLOPS under peak load, the accompanying power consumption can go as high as 14W. Its average power usage seems to be around 9W.

A newly unearthed Xiaomi patent depicts an intriguing device with a design that would fit well with a future Mi Mix 4 (or Mi Mix 2021) thanks to a combination of foldable technology and a slider mechanism. It appears Xiaomi is pushing ahead with work on producing a foldable smartphone that will likely feature an external secondary display.

Eve Devices is adamant that it should not ship its upcoming Spectrum monitor "until it is ready". To this end, it has revealed that the shipping date for its QHD/240Hz and 4K/144Hz SKUs has been pushed back to February 2021. This, apparently, will give it time to iron issues with its production out.

The Ryzen 5 5600X has flexed its muscles on PassMark, leaving Zen 2 and Intel processors in its wake. AMD's budget Vermeer and Zen 3 chip outscores all before it by at least 10% in PassMark's single-threaded test and is 47% faster than its predecessor.

Canonical has brought Ubuntu Desktop to the Raspberry Pi. The humble single-board computer can now be pre-loaded with Ubuntu 20.10, albeit only on the Raspberry Pi 4.

A Sony executive's latest blog post has revealed that 6 different major content-streaming platforms will be compatible with the PlayStation 5 from day 1. They include Spotify, YouTube, Disney Plus and Netflix, which will get their own dedicated buttons on the console's also newly-announced Media Remote. Other apps may become available thereafter.

Apple is now slated to finally unleash its long-awaited AirTags in 2021. These new products are currently widely accepted to be this OEM's answer to products such as Tile anti-loss wireless accessories. However, according to leaks of new patents obtained by the Cupertino company, their applications may go far beyond that.

Fancy some origami while you wait for your Xbox Series X to arrive? Well, Microsoft is offering Papercraft Kits with some Xbox Series X pre-orders, albeit only Germany. You can print out your own Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S 'Papercraft Kit' worldwide, though.

The first benchmark result for the RTX A6000 is in, and it does not look good for NVIDIA's enterprise card. Based on a full-fat GA102 GPU with 10,752 CUDA cores supported by 48 GB of VRAM, the RTX A6000 only managed 11% higher scores on average than the RTX 6000.

Intel CEO Bob Swan has confirmed that the first dedicated Xe graphics chip is now shipping and should be delivered before the end of the year. Its gaming desktop counterpart, the DG2, will not follow for a few months, though.

Gaming peripheral maker Genesis recently announced the Krypton 550 ultra-light gaming mouse. The Krypton 550 features RGB lighting, Huon switches, and an 8000 DPI sensor in a diminutive 70-gram package. The mouse is expected to hit the market by the end of October

Four independent sources reveal that that the RX 6800 XT cards perform up to 19% better in the Firestrike tests, and up to 3% faster in the Time Spy tests, but still trail behind the RTX 3080 in the Port Royal tests that focus on ray tracing performance. One of the sources claims that the AMD cards can even beat the RTX 3090 in the Firestrike tests, but we are suspecting the source is actually confusing RX 6800 XT with the more potent RX 6900 XT in this case.

The Xiaomi Mi A2 has received its monthly update, this time called V11.0.15.0.QDIMIXM. The new update brings the October 2020 set of security patches to the Android One handset, along with a few bug fixes. V11.0.15.0.QDIMIXM is rolling out now as an OTA.

Lenovo is now introducing Ryzen 4000H APU options for the world's lightest gaming laptops featuring RTX 2000 GPUs. The new Legion Slim 7 models can be equipped with up to a Ryzen 4900H APU coupled with up to 32 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, up to 2 TB of NVMe SSD storage and up to an RTX 2060 Max-Q GPU. Users can also choose between 60 Hz / 144 Hz FHD displays and even a 60 Hz 4K HDR screen.

NVIDIA may be planning another raid on the upper-midrange desktop graphics card market, according to a new leak. Apparently, the green team has a third GA102-based card in development, which would sit between the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 in its Ampere product stack with 7,424 CUDA cores, GDDR6X VRAM and possibly up to 232 Tensor cores.

After spending almost two decades on the market, the only portable media player sold by Apple that still carries the iPod name is the 7th generation Touch, which is much closer to an iPhone than to the original iPod. Once accounting for 40% of Apple's total revenue, the iPod is now only a shadow of its former self.

MIUI 12 may still be on a limited release for the global version of the Xiaomi Pocophone F1. If your device is yet to receive the OS upgrade, then flashing the OTA files manually may do the trick.

The Kingdel NC610 may be small, but it packs a punch. With an LGA 1151 socket and up to a pre-configured Core i7-9700F, the NC610 also features a replaceable GeForce GTX 1650 GPU and a host of connectivity. The Kingdel NC610 is also available with either a Core i3-9100F or a Core i5-9400F.

A new project has transformed a humble Arduino Pro Micro into a joystick with various knobs. The project is intended to be used in conjunction with a keyboard for making adjustments when gaming or creating music.

If you were hoping that Apple would release a successor to the AirPods Pro any time soon, then you are sorely mistaken. According to a new leak, the AirPods Pro 2 may not be arriving over a year. A rough price for the AirPods Pro 2 has been offered too, which is more encouraging.

The release of Halo Infinite may be a while off yet, but The Master Chief Collection is coming to the Xbox Series X and S on November 17. The re-release will run at up to 120 FPS on Microsoft's new consoles and will feature a host of improvement, such as a refined split-screen mode. Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be free for those who already the collection and also for those who subscribe to Xbox Game Pass.

Owners of the Redmi Note 7 that operates with the Europe (EEA) MIUI ROM will be pleased to know that there is an Android 10-based MIUI 12 beta stable update now available for that particular smartphone. MIUI 12 for Redmi Note 7 users with the Global, Indonesia, or Russia variant should be coming soon.

After months of waiting, Xiaomi has now started sending out the MIUI 12 update to the Snapdragon 665-powered branch of the Redmi Note 8 series, starting with the Redmi Note 8T. Yes, MIUI 12 is here for owners of the global Redmi Note 8T—and the Redmi Note 8 should follow shortly.

If you’re in the US and are keen to pick up a great deal, Google Fi has a new offer on the Pixel 4a. Depending on which plan you sign up to, you can get the Pixel 4a for just US$216.

The Xiaomi Fast LCD 24.5-inch Monitor has been launched in China with a regular price tag of 1,499 yuan (US$224), although it is on sale to early-bird purchasers. The gaming-friendly external Fast LCD Monitor promises 144 Hz refresh rate, Full HD resolution, 2 ms GTG response time, HDR400 display, and Adaptive-Sync for reduced tearing and stuttering.

The alleged international prices for the Huami Amazfit GTR 2 and Amazfit GTS 2 smartwatches have been leaked. Although both watches are packed with attractive features such as blood oxygen level measurement and heart-rate monitoring, the prices listed for the Amazfit GTR 2 and GTS 2 still seem quite steep.
Update: The smartwatches will launch in Europe on October 27.

The PNY XLR8 CS3040 NVMe SSDs are rated for speeds of up to 5.6 GB/s compared to the 5.5 GB/s SSD in the PS5. However, we doubt that the 100 MB/s difference will be enough of an overhead to make the PNY drives a good fit for the Sony console.

Apple may be expected to sell tens of millions of iPhone 12 units between now and next September or October, but the company has made a rather strange design decision for European models. Sadly, it has made the iPhone 12 a bit uglier in Europe than it is in the US, although it is unclear why Apple has done so.

Renowned leaker OnLeaks has lifted the veil off OnePlus' upcoming low-cost smartphones- the OnePlus Nord N100 and Nord N10 5G. The OnePlus Nord N10 5G gets a Qualcomm Snapdragon 690, four rear cameras, and a 4,300mAh battery, while the Nord N100 gets a Snapdragon 460, three rear cameras, and a 5,000mAh battery. OnePlus is expected to launch both phones on October 26.

Microsoft has released the Windows 10 21H1 Insider Preview Build 20241, integrating yet more features into next year's update. Behind the scenes, the company has been working on many features, including one that will warn people if their HDD or SSD is in a bad way.

Huawei's freshly-launched Mate 40 series has, as predicted through leaks, an extra-premium Porsche Design variant. It is accompanied by a similarly customized new smartwatch. This titanium-cased version of the Watch GT 2 has a new "iconic" watch-face, as well as continuous blood-oxygen tracking.

Nintendo Switch gamers can enjoy the third Torchlight game starting today just as promised. The new adventure "filled with hordes of goblins, undead and other dangerous Netherim creatures" is now live and early adopters also get the exclusive Ashen Glittersprite pet.

Lenovo has had to remove almost all its products from its German website, because of a patent dispute with Nokia. The Chinese company has supposedly been violating H.264 patents that Nokia holds, resulting in the Finnish company taking out an injunction to freeze Lenovo's online sales.

Huawei's major product launch of today (October 22, 2020) served to announce the Mate 40 phablet series and also several "companion" devices for it. They include the rumored FreeBuds Studio, the first ANC headphones from this line of audio products. In addition, a more compact version of the Sound X speaker made its debut.