Business Articles

On first glance, the ThinkPad X12 Detachable looks a lot like the ThinkPad X1 Tablet Gen 3. Despite the similarity, the X12 is no direct successor, as it is not an X1 ThinkPad anymore. This is not necessarily a bad thing: Since it is not a flagship model anymore, the ThinkPad X12 Detachable is much more affordable and thus more competitive.

Samsung has reportedly applied to trademark the phrase "Armor Frame" in the EU, US and South Korea. Its new American IP application specifically indicates that it applies to smartphones, inviting speculation that it refers to a new engineering or design tweak for its upcoming flagships, particularly those of a foldable nature.

Many Android phone owners use apps that mirror or "wrap" the mobile Facebook interface rather than use this company's app. However, the social media giant has started to deprive them of this option. It has already had the apps Simple Social and Swipe taken down from Google's Play Store.

The Sony PS5 may still be hard to find, but apparently enough people managed to buy one over the first five months it has been on sale. According to market research firm NPD, Sony now holds the record as the fasting selling console platform ever in the US.

The Urban T1 will sport Android 10 and a MediaTek SoC while the Urban N3 will be a full-fledged Windows 10 laptop with 11th Tiger Lake CPU options. Both models are expected to ship this June.

ViewSonic asserts that its upcoming monitors address the needs of those who work at home. The OEM's new 24- and 27-inch models have inbuilt webcams and the ergonomic stands to keep them at comfortable eye levels. There is also a 34-inch ultra-wide flagship with a USB type-C docking station for charging and connectivity.

LG has announced that it is out of the Android smartphone game; on the other hand, the cutting-edge Rollable mobile device is apparently being readied for launch. The latest step in this process is having it certified to use NFC, as the leaker Mukul Sharma has discovered.

Voice is an 'alternative' social media platform that claims to be about "real" users, their communities and their content. It has announced that it will "upgrade" itself with a new feature: the ability to issue NFTs for the digital artwork posted thereon. They will apparently be integrated with the EOSIO blockchain basis Voice has taken up to drive its tokenization model.

Samsung has launched three new gaming TVs under the QX2 series. The South Korea company sells the TVs as 55-inch, 65-inch and 75-inch models, albeit only in China for the time being. The fact that the TVs combine a native 4K resolution with a 120 Hz refresh rate and Samsung's excellent QLED technology should have all gamers interested.

The Realme executive Chase Yu has strongly hinted at a brand-new style for the OEM's upcoming Q3, a phone that might start as low as ~US$153 (or 1000 yuan). That would be an impressive feat, as the device is also rumored to run on the upper-mid-range-at-worst Dimensity 1100 SoC and to have a 120Hz display.

The Mi Mix Fold is Xiaomi's first-gen foldable phablet, and thus offers an 8-inch main display in a book-like form-factor. It has just been released for sale in China, which, according to the OEM, has been a complete success. Xiaomi claims to have sold all stock of the device for ~US$61 million in just 1 minute.

Amazon has announced its Echo Buds (2nd gen). The company claims to have addressed multiple issues customers had with their predecessors: they are now rated for better audio quality, active noise cancellation and fit in the ear. They are not available for purchase yet, though, but can be ordered in May 2021.

Logitech has killed Harmony, just as it did with Harmony Link and Squeeze Box. Apparently, Harmony servers will remain active, as will its database. For how long remains to be seen, though.

NVIDIA's CFO Colette Kress has spoken out about the ongoing graphics card shortage again. Apparently, demand is expected to outstrip supply for 'most of the year', which is another way of saying that there will be no GPUs at MSRP until next year.

Apple has just confirmed that its next Special Event will take place on April 20, 2021. Huawei has also gone ahead and scheduled a "new tablet debut" for the same day. This announcement, made through the OEM's official Japanese-language Twitter account, might lead to the unveiling of the MatePad Pro 2, a rumored iPad Pro competitor.

BlackBerry's latest owner, OnwardMobility, has committed to bringing the brand's signature physical keyboard back in a 5G phone soon. A tech blog has published work that imagines how such a phone might be designed in 2021. It combines triple rear cameras and a curved display with a new take on the classic feature.

Apple has been making misleading claims about the Pro Display XDR, according to The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK. Now, Apple can no longer claim that the Pro Display XDR offers 'far beyond HDR' in the UK, although it continues to do so in the US and other countries. The same goes for the company implying that the display covers 100% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut.

Apple has announced that it will host its next hardware event on April 20, although Siri confirmed the existence of the 'Spring Loaded' event before Apple did. The event will commence at 10:00 am PDT and is expected to showcase several products, including next-generation iPads.

A prolific camera-tech leaker claims that there is a new unit called the EOS R3 in the works at Canon. It will allegedly be mirrorless, yet be quite like the 1D series in terms of looks. Therefore, the putative new premium device might be best suited to high-speed, high-action subjects, which would make a rumored debut at the 2021 Olympic Games more plausible.

The major Computex industry event is now confirmed to take place in 2021. It will do so in "hybrid" form this year, which means a blend of onsite and virtual presentations and resources. This entire show will run from May 31 to June 30, 2021, and is slated to see participation from prominent OEMs, AMD and Intel included.

Nvidia has revealed its first data center CPU, a high-performance Arm-based platform that it claims is 10x faster than today’s fastest servers when it comes to processing complex AI and other high-performance workloads. The system works with Nvidia’s DPUs and also leverages its Ampere-based GPU to accelerate processing workloads.

Key specifications for the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5750G, Ryzen 5 PRO 5650G, and Ryzen 3 PRO 5350G desktop APUs have been shared online. Unsurprisingly, the Ryzen PRO 5000G chips should offer the same specs and performance as the regular Cezanne Zen 3 desktop APU counterparts, but with the added benefit of AMD’s PRO technologies for business.

Thank heavens the sale configuration comes with 16 GB of RAM instead of just 8 GB of RAM. The new price is a bit lower than a Dell Latitude 14 or HP EliteBook when both are configured with similar specifications.

Lenovo expands its ThinkPad X1-series with the X1 Titanium Yoga, an expensive business convertible. It is just 11.5 mm thin and also the thinnest ThinkPad so far, but you have to make compromises.

Laptop manufacturers have often been accused by some of being "obsessed with slimness". A casualty of the trend towards increasingly thinner laptops are full-size SD card slots. This makes the few models that still have SD card slots - such as the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 Gen 2 - all the more interesting.

A Weibo account associated with Lenovo has released teasers for a new tablet called the Yoga Pad Pro - which might prove to be the Chinese variant of a slate to be called the Yoga Tab 13 in international markets. It is to be accompanied by another 11-inch tablet, as well as what might be a Yoga Duet 7i refresh.

A user of a "popular hacker forum" claims to have scraped the data from approximately 500 million LinkedIn accounts - personal information such as names, email addresses and phone numbers included - and now plans to sell it at auction. This individual has reportedly posted 0.4% of these files as proof of their theft.

Microsoft has implemented what it calls the world's first liquid-cooling system for high-performance computing (HPC), at a datacenter located in Washington, US. This prototype rig type uses a custom-designed, electronics-safe dielectric fluid rather than water, which means the servers in question can be immersed in it directly. This, as the OEM asserts, confers various advantages over alternatives such as air-cooling.

A timely reminder has been shared of how the current global chip famine has affected processor prices, in this case specifically for the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. While retailers who have tried to stay close to MSRP are invariably out of stock, those with Ryzen 9 5950X CPUs to sell are mostly setting astronomical price tags for the Zen 3 powerhouse.

Some recent leaks have pointed to the prospect of a Lite version of the Galaxy Tab A7. Now, the addition of a new device to the support sections of a number of national Samsung websites may suggest this slate is nearly here. According to Geekbench, it has 3GB of RAM and runs One UI based on Android 11.

Not much has been heard of HTC since it launched its Desire 21 Pro in January 2021. However, the OEM reportedly intends to stay in the smartphone industry for at least the rest of this year, with new 5G devices ready to go from the second quarter (2Q2021). HTC may also consolidate its presence in the enterprise-grade virtual or augmented reality (VR or AR) sector with new hardware and services.

The Easter Sale campaign ran by MINISFORUM includes tempting deals on the brand's most popular devices, including the HM50 (US$100 for the first 100 units sold), UM270 and UM820/850 (US$50 off), as well as a mere US$20 off for the UM250 and X35G. Most of the discounts will be available until the end of the month.

Sony remains the number one supplier of camera sensors to smartphone OEMs globally, according to Strategy Analytics. Coming in a distant second place is Samsung with Omnivision in third place followed by other vendors.

The latest high-end video cards from NVIDIA are priced really high and the prices of custom designs make the US$2,999.99 tag on a GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition that has just been sold on eBay look like a bargain. For example, a German seller is down to the last ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 ROG STRIX, after selling 11 for over US$3,900 each.

The manufacturer is fighting pollution in the most Razer way possible: by selling green and black apparel to fund the recovery of floating plastics in the ocean. So, when are we getting a pair of Razer underwear?

Huawei is now thought to have a new smartwatch on the way. A Weibo-based leaker now asserts that it is to be called the Watch 3 and is not to be a 'sports' model. This source also believes that the OEM will install a "full" version HarmonyOS. The wearable might also support eSIMs and more third-party apps compared to its predecessors.

An unboxed copy of the game Super Mario Bros for the legacy Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console has reportedly sold at auction for US$660,000. This is the largest final asking price for a video game yet. The item in question was a 1986 release in rare condition and packaging.

A well-known leaker now claims that OPPO is working on a prototype mobile device with that ever-popular "port-less" design in mind. However, it seems the OEM has struck a unique balance between function and looks in this concept, as it does in fact have a USB port (albeit one a user might have trouble finding). It is also said to integrate electrochromic glass and under-display tech in order to deploy its cameras at need.

A new report tells us that Qualcomm has secured a deal with TSMC to manufacture some parts on the latter's 5nm and 6nm process node. Whether this is for bolstering existing Snapdragon 888 capacities or for an entirely different line of products remains to be seen.

Atari announced the creation of two new divisions under the main Atari Group. Atari Gaming will continue to manage the company's gaming division, including game development, the VCS console, and the licensing of recognizable Atari games. The new Atari Blockchain division will focus on blockchain and cryptocurrency opportunities, primarily Atari's Atari Token cryptocurrency.

Sony is launching the Xperia 1 III and Xperia 10 III in a few days, but a case manufacturer is already selling cases for both devices. The listings reveal the designs of both devices too, confirming the revised rear-facing cameras for this year's Xperia 1.

Nokia has reportedly posted a new job listing for a UX designer. This position's remit will apparently involve producing an optimal user experience both for mobile devices and online. The OS in question is not mentioned; however, the call for applicants has led to speculation as to the future of this brand's smartphones.

LG's mobile division is coming to an end, but new sightings of the V70 and Rollable suggest that the pair were at late stages of development. Hands-on photos of both have surfaced, while a benchmark listing has confirmed that LG had developed the V70 ThinQ with a Snapdragon 888 and at least 8 GB of RAM.

Recent rumors of Huawei's planned entry into the electric vehicle market seem to have been given more weight today thanks to the well-known leaker @RODENT950. It seems that the first car developed in partnership with the OEM will launch on April 17, 2021. Then again, it may be that Huawei has only provided the smart system for this product, which is likely only to be available in China.