Laptop

Gigabyte has announced 2021 back-to-school deals on select hardware from its premium gaming brands and series, AORUS and Aero included. These discounts are mainly found on Newegg or Amazon, and may involve up to US$900 on certain OLED-display options in some cases.

Xiaomi has upgraded its Mi Notebook 14 Series to the Mi Notebook 2021 Series with the launch of the Mi Notebook Pro and Mi Notebook Ultra SKUs. Both models are powered by Intel Tiger Lake-H35 processors and feature largely identical specifications with the primary differences being with respect to the display and battery capacity.

The combined market share of the two companies threatens Samsung's position as the world's biggest NAND memory producer. Western Digital and Kioxia (Toshiba's memory division) have already been collaborating for 20 years, so the merger does not come as a huge surprise.

Panasonic has launched its take on what is often called the "wearable speaker" in 2021. Like some others on the market, the accessory is worn around the neck for "immersive" sound. The OEM is pitching this version - the SoundSlayer WIGSS or SC-GN01 - at gamers, with wired compatibility for consoles such as the PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch.

SS appears to be the best of both worlds. On the one hand, it is AI-based and should provide high quality results similar to DLSS, but on the other hand, the tech aims to become completely open source by the second or third iteration.

One of the most popular Windows laptops can be had for under a grand without needing to cut corners on RAM, storage, or processor performance.

Xiaomi is now rumored to have new laptops to introduce to the Indian market. The Mi Notebook Pro and Ultra are slated to be 14- to 15.6-inch devices that go up to 3.2K in terms of display resolution. However, they may differ in terms of refresh rate and graphics solutions.

Apparently, AMD was considering implementing Intel's Foveros 3D technology at some point, but later decided to go with TSMC's superior Micro Bump 3D packaging that is 1 micron thinner and quite a bit more efficient. This is only the beginning, as AMD plans to refine the interconnect pitch in the future, allowing for more complex 3D stacking applications.

The power-accessory OEM Volta has revealed that its next product is to be the GIGA, a charger of the ultra-compact gallium nitride- (GaN) based variety. There will be 2 variants of this product: one rated to charge at up to 130W and one for up to 200W. The company notes that it will be available as an Indiegogo campaign reward soon, at potentially substantial discounts over retail.

It has been claimed that although the upcoming Apple MacBook Pro 14 will obviously be smaller than the MacBook Pro 16 it will still offer the same level of performance as the larger laptop thanks to the Apple M1X SoC. However, this performance comes at a price, with the M1X MacBook Pro 14 likely costing much more than a MacBook Pro 13.

The sale makes the Prestige 14 Evo one of the cheapest and lightest laptops you can find with both the Core i5-1135G7 CPU and a display capable of full sRGB coverage.

Lenovo's slim all-rounder offers a well-rounded feature set: A Core i5 processor, the GeForce MX450 GPU, 16 GB of RAM (dual-channel mode), and an NVMe SSD. This is complemented by good battery life, and a 16-inch display (2560x1600, IPS, 120 Hz) in the 16:10 format.

The Ryzen 7 5800H APU and the GeForce RTX 3070 laptop GPU bring all modern games smoothly onto the matte 15.6-inch display (2560x1440 pixels, IPS, 144 Hz). Due to the low TGP, the GPU performs below its potential. The laptop offers room for three storage drives (2x M.2 SSD, 1x 2.5-inch).

Planning on buying an Asus ROG Strix G17 g713? You might want to pay attention to the fine print because some SKUs are actually thicker and heavier than others.

You should have a closer look at the ThinkPad E15 G3 AMD if you are looking for a solid office laptop with a 15-inch screen and a very good keyboard. Thanks to the AMD Ryzen processor, you also get plenty of CPU performance, which can rival many slim workstations.

The Envy 17 cg1356ng would really be well-suited for its targeted usage, if it weren't for the very reflective display causing some limitations in where it can be used.

The prospect of Windows 11 is strongly linked to mixed feelings at present. However, a study based on approximately 11,000 survey responses from participants who currently use the OS found that over 50% of this group would install the update without delay. Accordingly, 17% of the respondents are now in the Insiders program on the strength of Microsoft's latest launch.

According to a new leak, Intel is currently developing a gaming laptop called the NUC X15. The machine will feature up to a 1440p and 240 Hz display, powered by NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 or RTX 3070 GPUs. The NUC X15 will have two M.2 SSDs drive bays, too.

Intel detailed some of the technical aspects of its upcoming Arc Xe-HPG Alchemist DG2 GPU during its Architecture Day 2021 presentation. Arc DG2 is fabbed on the TSMC 6 nm process and is comprised of what Intel calls as Xe-cores, with up to 4 Xe-cores in a render slice which also includes ray tracing cores and fixed function units.

Asus has launched a special edition of its ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop. The new device is the result of a collaboration with DJ Alan Walker and features a DJ mixing deck built into the packaging along with some other unique design touches and bonus items.

Realme has launched its first laptop series, the Realme Book Slim. The Realme Book Slim will be available in two color options and in Core i3 and Core i5 variants. Salient features of the Realme Book Slim include an all-metal design, 3:2 2K display, 65 W fast charging, and a PC Connect app for linking up with Realme smartphones.

The EliteBook 850 G8 is the latest business laptop from HP. It features a 1000-nit screen, 5G modem, smart card reader and an NFC chip. The HP laptop looks and feels very premium.

RTX 3050? More like GTX 3050. Nvidia introduced the "RTX" moniker to imply real-time ray tracing capabilities and acceleration, but the GeForce RTX 3050 is looking worse than even the GTX 1660 Ti.

An Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE powered by the AMD Ryzen 9 5980HX Cezanne APU and Nvidia RTX 3080 Laptop GPU has been spotted on Geekbench. While we do see performance gains compared to an average Ryzen 9 5900HX, they are not very high and seem to be well within the margin of error.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15ALC05 excels in our review with long battery life and solid performance, but it also has some surprising disadvantages compared to its 14-inch counterpart.

A release date for the M1X MacBook Pro laptops and tidbits about the iPhone 13, Apple Watch Series 7, AirPods 3, iPad mini 6, and ninth-generation iPad have been offered up in Mark Gurman’s latest newsletter. He predicts that Apple will hold multiple virtual events to cover all the upcoming product launches.

We just reviewed the brand-new Dell XPS 15 9510 with Intel's Tiger Lake-H processor. The performance is not bad, but AMDs current Ryzen CPUs are just more efficient and would leave more headroom for more powerful GPUs.

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro 14ACH5 scores points with its powerful Ryzen 9 5900HX APU, 16 GB of RAM, and a 14-inch display (2880x1800 pixels, 90 Hz, IPS) in the 16:10 format. This is accompanied by good battery life as well as low noise and heat development.

Realme has confirmed that it will launch its first-ever ultrabook in a few days from today (August 15, 2021). This PC - to be called the Book Slim in some markets - is now also said to come with some additional features and accessories that might bring it up to the level of some rival OEMs such as Xiaomi and Huawei.

The Legion 5 Pro from Lenovo shows many of the characteristics that make a good gaming laptop. The QHD display in the 16:10 format that is very bright at 522 cd/m² was excellent in our test. The CPU and GPU in the Legion appear to be well matched to the display resolution.

A patent that surfaced recently shows a MacBook with a new input device, namely the Apple Pencil. The images that accompany this patent show the pencil docked within the keyboard, and the Touch Bar as we know it will be gone. A much smaller one will be used, most likely in the next MacBook Pro.

Microsoft's strict hardware requirements for Windows 11 are expected to increase the demand for new compatible devices, which will supposedly lead to extended shipping times for notebooks and PCs due to the continuing worldwide semiconductor shortage.

Panasonic has launched a new version of its rugged Toughbook 55 laptop with updated specs and I/O. They include 11th-gen Intel CPUs - which also of course makes one of its ports Thunderbolt 4. However, the PC is still fully compatible with the user-swappable xPAK modules that can customize a unit to a customer's specific professional or public service needs.

On the lookout for your next budget gaming laptop? Then you may want to skip the 8 nm GeForce RTX 3050 and just consider the 12 nm GTX 1660 Ti or RTX 2060 instead. Not only are these older options faster, but they are likely to be less expensive as well.

It may be pricey, but this 15.6-inch portable monitor seems to have checked all the right boxes for both gamers and editors. Hopefully its black-white and gray-gray response times won't be as slow as on the smaller 14-inch version.

A new entry on UserBenchmark shows that Gigabyte has a new AORUS 17G gaming laptop in development with an Intel Alder Lake processor containing 14 cores and 20 threads. The machine also has DDR5 RAM clocked at 4,800 MHz.

According to a new report, Microsoft is readying a next-generation Surface Book, albeit one that could be unrecognisable from the Surface Book 3. Reputedly, the next Surface Book may not be called a Surface Book at all, and will not have a detachable display. It will have a high-refresh-rate 14-inch screen, though.