Business Articles

Remote-working products reign supreme at present; however, Dell has prepared its new Meeting Space Solutions against the come-back of the real-life boardroom. They are bundles tailored to in-person conference settings of different sizes and conformations, and also adapt to the software preferred by the business client in question: Microsoft Teams or Zoom.

As the launch date of the upcoming AirPods Studio and HomePod Mini is drawing near, Apple is taking the final steps needed to maximize the success of its next-gen products. In a quiet move, the Cupertino-based giant removed all non-Apple audio gear — including brands like BOSE and Sonos — from its retail and online stores.

A fan-made image of some of the major titles lined up for the PlayStation 5 has appeared online and excited many waiting for their PS5 pre-order to be fulfilled. However, while the next-gen console is a reasonable purchase in some countries, in others buying one is a difficult decision for even the most loyal fan to make.

Through the Chinese site Baidu, we may have gotten the first pictures and spec-info on the next gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 and ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 6. Both appear to be redesigned and are apparently featuring 16:10 screens.

The RTX A6000 and A40 have been introduced as state-of-the-art GPUs for content creation, data-centers or engineering. They are based on the latest Ampere architecture, and have been equipped with next-gen tensor, RT and CUDA cores. These cards are therefore rated to outstrip their Quadro predecessors in terms of throughput and performance.

A new report from Counterpoint Research on smartphone-buying trends in Europe has concluded that the majority of poll respondents from Spain or Germany would prefer to buy their next mobile device online. By contrast, only 10% of UK participants prefer online platforms, preferring some hands-on time with their choices before buying.

French outlet Cowcotland claims that the first-gen Navi RX 5700 is no longer being manufactured, just weeks ahead of AMD’s supposed RDNA2 hard launch. Interestingly, the RX 5700 XT, RX 5600 XT, and even a number of older Polaris cards are still being manufactured, per the report.

AOC has presented three new entries in its E2 series, called the Q3232N, Q3432A and U32E2N, respectively. All three monitors offer good value for money, yet are designed for different use cases.

NVIDIA has announced that the launch of the GeForce RTX 3070 will be postponed by two weeks to October 29. Apparently, the delay will ensure better availability than the calamitous release of the GeForce RTX 3080.

The Xperia 5 II is now available to order, and Sony is offering multiple TWS earbud pre-order bundles across Europe. These bundles include the WF-1000XM3 or the WH-1000XM3, which are still some of the best noise-cancelling wireless headphones on the market, among other audio products. The Xperia 5 II itself has a Snapdragon 865 chipset, a 6.1-inch display and four cameras, among other features.

The 14-inch laptop will have a 1000-nit FHD touchscreen, up to 25 hours of battery life, multiple expansion options, up to a GeForce GTX GPU, and plenty of I/O ports.

Schenker is pitching the XMG DJ 15 at those who might move around a lot with their laptop, yet need all the I/O they can get - live entertainers included. It packs a host of ports, dual 3.5mm headphone jacks for audio and mics or S/PDIF optical outputs included. It also offers an up to tenth-gen Core i7 processor and 32GB of RAM.

The Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a (5G) are here, and Google is offering a pair of Bose QC35 II headphones with pre-orders in multiple countries. The reason for bundling such expensive headphones with pre-orders may owe to the state of Google's smartphone business, which has plummeted over 60% in the last year.

After months of leaks, Lenovo's new 13 inch flagship is here: The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano takes Dell's XPS 13 9310 head on, with Intel Tiger Lake, a 16:10 aspect-ratio screen and a much more lightweight chassis.

The new IdeaPad S540-13 (AMD) is now available on Lenovo's French-language webstore. It has been here before: however, this latest arrival is powered by the Ryzen 7 4800H APU, rather than the 7 4800U. Nevertheless, the price for this newer model with the more powerful chipset remains the same as the old.

Lenovo is clearly aiming its new 27-inch monitor at professionals who work off-site. Besides its ThinkVision branding and esthetics, it boasts a new, 1080p webcam with a privacy shutter, an integrated noise-cancelling mic and a speaker. There is also a streamlined USB type C interface with 90W charging and eye-health certifications for its 2K display.

Lenovo pivots the ThinkBook 15 Gen2 into the 'work from home' market with a novel new feature that significantly improves its versatility as a video conferencing device.

The Lenovo ThinkBook 15p is for the creators with a factory-calibrated display. It takes the design of the slightly smaller ThinkBook 15 but adds a more powerful H-series processor and Nvidia GTX graphics.

Thunderbolt and good screens were always kept exclusive to the T series among the Lenovo ThinkPad line. This seems to change with the new second gen ThinkPad E14 and E15 with Intel Tiger Lake CPUs, as both are the first E ThinkPads to feature Tiger Lake and at least get optional better screens.

It took longer than originally announced, but the first PC with a foldable screen is finally hitting the market: The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold may usher in a new category of mobile PCs - even if it probably will not break sales records.

Mobile phone accessories are big business: they made for a US$118 billion market for the combined Middle East/Asia-Pacific regions in 2019. New market research indicates this worth could grow to nearly $155 billion by 2027. Australia and New Zealand may have the greatest share of it by sub-region in that year.

Although the latest statistics show its usage below 1 percent worldwide, the now ancient Windows XP is still being used by almost two times as many people as the more recent Windows Vista. However, the fact that the leaked code became widely available this week through Mega, 4Chan, and other sources, should make anyone think twice before going online with it.

Canon has unveiled the EOS C70 4K Digital Cinema Camera, the first of its series to have compatibility with RF lenses. It features a next-gen Super 35mm sensor, yet weighs only 2.6lbs. It is rated for 4K DCI/UHD up to 120 frames per second (fps) or 2K DCI/HD up to 180 fps.

Konami has brought Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance to the GOG store. The two classic games are available for US$9.50 each and will work on Windows 7 through 10. The original Metal Gear and Konami Collector's Series: Castlevania & Contra can be downloaded for US$6.33, too.

The Galaxy A71 sports four cameras at the back and new information indicates that the upcoming Galaxy A72 will do one better, by adding a 3x optical zoom lens to the mix, bringing it in line with more premium offerings. At the front of the phone will be a 32 MP shooter for a total of six cameras.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 FE was released earlier in the week and is already listed for pre-order on stores like Amazon and B&H with a US$599 price tag. Comparatively, the OnePlus 8T and Pixel 5 have been touted to be prices higher than that while also offering worse hardware.

After releasing the Redmi Note 9 back in April, Xiaomi is set to launch the Redmi Note 10 series soon. The latest report claims that the Redmi Note 10 or Redmi Note 10 Pro will be powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 750G and could, in fact, be a rebadged Mi 10T Lite in China and/or India.

NVIDIA's new range of RTX Quadro cards is almost here, and the RTX (A)6000 may well be at the top of the pack. The 300 W card is expected to launch on October 5 with a GA102 GPU, 48 GB of GDDR6 VRAM and a new 8-pin power connector.

Intel has emphasised that its latest Pentium, Celeron and Atom processors are ideal for the Internet of Things (IoT) use-cases of the near future. They are ultra-low-power CPUs that can still drive multiple 4K displays and are rated for twice the 3D graphics performance compared to their predecessors. They will start to become available in the first quarter of 2021.

Intel's Industrial Summit 2020 revealed that the OEM now believes that data and its processing will migrate to the edge in the future. To that end, it has announced 11th-gen Core processor versions aimed at Internet of Things (IoT) applications. They are extra-low-power variants of Tiger Lake CPUs with features such as Deep Learning Boost, although they retain Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe 4.0 support.

HMD Global has released three new smartphones, the Nokia 2.4, Nokia 3.4 and Nokia 8.3 5G. The Nokia 2.4 and Nokia 3.4 are the only genuinely new smartphones of the three, as HMD Global unveiled the Nokia 8.3 5G in March.

The PC manufacturer Lenovo is preparing to launch new ThinkPad laptops. For the upcoming launch, Lenovo will host a virtual event on September 29. The event is set to revolve around the ThinkPad X1 series.

Its Core i7 processor is almost 40 percent slower than on the Dell latitude 9510 2-in-1 equipped with the exact same CPU. The deficit can be attributed to the shorter-lived Turbo Boost potential of the HP system.

LG has released a new smartphone, the K71. The new mid-range smartphone has a 6.8-inch display, 4 GB of RAM and stylus support. A 4,000 mAh battery is onboard too, as are four cameras.

TSMC surprised everyone when it announced that its 3 nm nodes will not use GAAFET transistors. Meanwhile, the Taiwanese foundries decided to speed up the release of the 2 nm nodes, which will finally adopt the GAAFET design. Still, the N2 nodes will only become operational by mid-2023, allowing Samsung to get the edge with its 3 nm GAAFET nodes by late 2021. Despite this advantage, TSMC is confident that Samsung will not get too many orders for the 3 nm node due to low yields.

D-Link has announced the DCS-8302LH Full HD Outdoor Wi-Fi Camera. Despite one part of its name, the OEM asserts it is sleek and sophisticated to have inside the house as well. It also packs features such as IR for night vision, AI to help avoid unnecessary user alerts and "next-gen" IPv6/WPA3 support.

HP announced two new mobile thin clients today, both of which can run either Windows 10 IoT or HP's ThinPro OS. The mobile thin clients will feature AMD Ryzen CPUs.

HP has launched a new compact desktop for enterprise use. The HP t540 Thin Client comes with an AMD Ryzen R1305G CPU, Vega 3 iGPU, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, 512GB of solid-state storage, two USB Type-C ports, and a Wi-Fi 6 antenna. Its price and availability will be announced in December 2020.

HP has unveiled the latest version of its ThinPro OS for enterprise devices. ThinPro 7.2 has a locked file system and SecureBoot signing for added security. It also supports a host of virtual desktop environments like Citrix and VMWare. HP will announce ThinPro 7.2's price once it is released this December.

HP has announced an Athlon or Ryzen-based model to complement their Intel-based HP Pro C640 which released earlier in August. The new AMD Athlon C and Ryzen C options combine with up to 16 GB RAM and a 128 GB NVMe drive to create an impressive Chromebook.

A prototype of the Xperia Play 2 has appeared online, harking back to a time before Sony fully acquired the Sony Ericsson brand. The prototype offers a reminder of what could be if Sony released a PlayStation-inspired smartphone again.

The PlayStation 5 will launch in Singapore on November 19, 2020. On that date, its Standard edition will be the most expensive variant of its series yet in that country (as indeed it will for pretty much all its markets). However, some new research may predict when its price will get more bearable for many consumers.

Microsoft now owns all franchises like Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, and Fallout thanks to its acquisition of Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax. Several Bethesda, id Software, and Arkane Studios games will be added to the Xbox Game Pass soon.

Xiaomi's CEO, Lei Jun, reportedly estimated that his OEM's global operations represented 50% or more of its total revenue at this stage. Speaking at an innovation conference in China, the executive attributed this international success to MIUI. This Android skin started out as a custom ROM, but now exists as multilingual official software found on millions of devices worldwide.

Although the AMD Ryzen 4000 series offers better performance compared to current Intel CPUs, the former processors aren't available in business convertibles that can be used both as tablet and laptop. The only exception is the HP ProBook x360 435 G7, which promptly received a good score in our test.

Large-scale 'video wall'-style displays (or those that are about 100 inches diagonally or more) are often impressive and effective, particularly in a professional environment. However, they can pose several disadvantages, especially when made using conventional LCDs. ViewSonic asserts that its new, LED-based alternative solves many of them while offering a more streamlined viewing and installation experience.

Lenovo US has announced a major sales event running for this weekend only, with up to 70% off some PCs of various types. Among these are the 7th- and 8th-gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultrabooks, which are down to under US$1000 in some cases. The Ryzen 7 Pro 3700U-powered T495s also features here at an excellent price.

The Redmi K40 Pro will be Redmi's next-gen premium device, and initial details of the phone have now surfaced. Notable takeaways include a more powerful chipset than the Snapdragon 865 on the Redmi K30 Pro, more impressive camera hardware, bigger battery, and faster charging.