Laptop

Unveiled during today's RazerCon 2020 virtual event, the Razer Viper Ultimate Cyberpunk 2077 Edition is a light wireless gaming mouse with an impressive 20,000 DPI resolution and a battery life of roughly 70 hours. This limited-edition accessory for Cyberpunk 2077 fans will hit the market next month for US$159.99.

The US State of California's legislative body has passed a resolution that makes today (October 10, 2020) Blue Light Awareness Day in the jurisdiction. The device certification group Eyesafe has welcomed the motion, particularly in light of the trend towards remote working and learning and, thus, the ever-growing rate of screen use in the region.

According to a new Bloomberg report, Apple's ARM-powered MacBooks could arrive earlier than expected. The report indicates that Apple will host a second event in November to unveil their new MacBook lineup. This means that the transition from x86 could start before 2021.

With the Aorus 7 KB, Gigabyte delivers a 17.3-inch gaming laptop that brings all modern computer games smoothly onto the matte screen (Full HD, IPS, 144 Hz). The device offers space for up to three storage devices.

Innovative features may be the icing on the cake but in order to make it in the laptop market you need to cover the basics. The ThinkBook Plus's special feature is its e-ink display. Unfortunately, the rest of the notebook is average at best.

It takes two large 60 mm fans and eleven copper heat pipes to cool both a 125 W CPU and 200 W GPU in a laptop chassis. However, the resulting fan noise will be as large and in charge as the resulting performance.

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon has leaked, confirming multiple details about the upcoming 13.3-inch ultrabook. The machine will have a 16:10 display, a choice of Tiger Lake chipsets, up to 16 GB of RAM and Thunderbolt 4 support, among other features.

ARM is projecting up to 30% increased performance gains over the Cortex-X1 cores by the time the Makalu generation releases in 2022. The Matterhorn generation will introduce improved security features like Memory Tagging Extension, while Makalu is said to be the first generation to support only 64-bit instruction sets.

An industry insider says that Apple has two new chips earmarked for its ARM-based MacBooks. The eight-core chip will likely power the upcoming 13-inch MacBook Air, and the twelve-core chip will be featured alongside the 13-inch MacBook Pro. A sixteen-core version is also due for release in 2021.

Even though the CPU ID reads 16C 32T, the thread count only shows 24 threads. Apparently only the 8 Golden Cove big cores support hyperthreading, while the 8 Gracemont small cores do not. The test sample seems to support only DDR4 memory, but this is probably due to the absence of DDR5 specs in the testing software.

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 Pavilion's hardware brings all modern computer games smoothly onto the matte 15.6-inch screen (IPS, Full HD, 144 Hz). The latter scores points with fast response times and good color reproduction. This is complemented by an NVMe SSD and 16 GB of RAM (dual-channel mode).

We have received exclusive information from our OEM sources about upcoming Intel Tiger Lake-H, Alder Lake-P, and Alder Lake-S processors. While Tiger Lake-H will be based on Willow Cove, Alder Lake-P and S will feature a hybrid Golden Cove and Gracemont architecture. Alder Lake will also be the first to bring DDR5-4400 RAM, AV1 accelerated encode, GNA 3.0, Wi-Fi 6E, and PCIe Gen5 support along with new security extensions.

OWC has launched its first dock specifically aimed at PCs equipped with Thunderbolt 4 ports. It offers a further 3 USB type Cs with the same standard, as well as a 3.2 type A port. It is rated to support dual 4K displays or one 5 to 8K monitor, as well as a range of additional peripherals, storage media or devices to 1 state-of-the-art machine.

The new ZenBook Flip S left a good impression in our review, but there are still some aspects about the convertible, that Asus could improve.

The laptop-grade RTX 3070 GPU is apparently getting 8 GB of 12 Gbps GDDR6 VRAM, but it is very likely that the lower TGP of around 120 W will limit this chip's performance, so it will not really match the performance of a desktop-grade RTX 2080 Ti. Regardless of these limitations, the RTX 3070 mobility GPU should still be a decent upgrade over the current RTX 2080 Super.

The CPU update will bring Intel Evo to HP's mid-range Envy 13 family of subnotebooks. Physical features of the chassis will otherwise be identical to the 2019 Ice Lake Envy 13 family.

If the HP Spectre x360 13 seems too small and the HP Spectre x360 15 seems too big, then the upcoming HP Spectre x360 14 might be just right. The new model will be introducing both a 3:2 display aspect ratio and Intel Tiger Lake Core U processor options when it launches later this month.

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.

Above all, Asus achieves a shorter battery life with the Zephyrus S15's upgrade to current hardware. Despite the better CPU performance, the overall performance hardly has any noticeable effect on gaming performance.

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 Surface Laptop Go is here, Microsoft's small form factor laptop. The Go features a 12.4-inch display, a 15 W Ice Lake processor and starts at US$549.99. You may want to skip the entry-level model though, as it comes with just 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage. Prices rise to US$1,119.99 for 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, but this is only available to business customers.

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 Zephyrus M15's main components bring all the latest computer games smoothly to the 15.6" matte screen (4k, IPS, Pantone certified). Equally nice, the rest of the interior: 2x NVMe-SSD (RAID 0), 16 GB RAM (Dual Channel), Thunderbolt 3.

The next Surface Laptop will be called the Surface Laptop Go, according to a new report. The device will weigh in at around 1.1 kg and will pack a 12.45-inch PixelSense display, along with a 15 W Ice Lake processor. The Surface Laptop Go will be available with up to 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, but the US$699.99 entry-level edition must make do with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of eMMC storage.

Microsoft has delayed the release of the Surface Laptop 8 and Surface Pro 8, according to a report. The two devices may not arrive until Q1 2021, with Microsoft opting to release an updated version of the Surface Pro X and a budget Surface Laptop, instead.

Folding@home has developed software that makes the complex process of protein structure analysis crowd-sourced. Accordingly, it benefits from the "spare" GPU power of its contributors' PCs. Furthermore, its software now has CUDA support, which may allow it and the Covid-19 research it feeds into to get much faster.

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 refreshed the ThinkBook 13s with Intel Tiger Lake processors. The Lenovo ThinkBook 13s Gen 2 comes with a 13.3-inch WQXGA IPS panel, up to 8GB of RAM and 1TB of solid-state storage, and a 61Wh battery that can be charged at 65W. It will be available for sale in October 2020, starting at US$829 and US$729 for the Intel and AMD versions.

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.

Lenovo is offering processor options up to an i7 Tiger Lake for the Intel models or up to a Ryzen 7 4800U for the AMD models. The Intel models are a bit bulkier as they get the best features including up to 40 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, up to 3 TB of storage, an MX450 dGPU option and a Thunderbolt 4 connector. The AMD models, however, are limited to up to 16 GB LPDDR4x-4266 RAM, up to 1 TB storage, and they do not get a dGPU option, but they also are lighter and slimmer.

The ThinkBook 14s Yoga convertibles are lighter and slimmer than previous versions due to the new anodized aluminum chassis. They also come with the latest Corning Gorilla Glass protective layer for the 360-degree touchscreen. Processor options go up to an Intel gen 11 i7 Tiger Lake, which can be coupled with up to 40 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, and there is a Thunderbolt 4 connector, as well.

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.

The newly-unveiled ThinkBook 14 Gen 2 can be configured with Intel Tiger Lake and AMD processors. Other features include an FHD IPS/TN display, an Intel Xe/Nvidia MX 450 GPU, Wi-Fi 6 compatibility, and more. The notebooks will be available for purchase in October 2020. Prices start US$569 for the Intel model and US$549 for the AMD variant.

Details on the inaugural digital event RazerCon have been unveiled. This 2020 conference will provide mixed-reality (MR) showcases of new products from the event's host, as well as partners including NVIDIA, Intel and Western Digital. There will also be appearances by gaming celebrities during the live-streamed show, as well as a virtual concert featuring artists such as Deadmau5.