Laptop

Looks like Intel does not really want to sever all ties with Apple, even after denigrating the new M1-powered Macs in its quite aggressive ad campaign released last week. With the introduction of its IDM 2.0 strategic plan that includes a Foundry Service program for fabless companies in the U.S. and Europe, Intel hopes to regain Apple's trust by offering to produce future ARM-based M processors. It remains to be seen how Intel is going to match TSMC's 3 nm and 2 nm nodes.

The MSI GE76 is your best bet thus far if you want one of the fastest GeForce RTX 30 laptops in the market. Its 155 W TGP GPU allows the laptop to pull ahead in almost all cases when compared to other models with the same RTX 3080 GPU.

Unlike previous models that packed very modest specs, the T.Bolt 10 DG sports an Intel Core i7-10510U CPU and an Iris Xe Max dGPU. It also features a premium slim and light brushed metal chassis with a narrow bezel FHD 15.6-inch display, plus 8 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 256 GB NVMe or SATA storage.

Lenovo introduces its third-gen 11.6-inch Windows machines for education as devices robust and versatile enough for any kind of learning situation the student might encounter. The 500w and 300w convertibles come in casings with the durability-focused designs schools might prefer to see, as does the 100w clamshell. The series incorporates the AMD 3015e platform, although there is the option of a Pentium chipset in the 500w.

Lenovo announced three new Chromebooks for the education market today. The Lenovo 100e Chromebook Gen 3 and 300e Chromebook Gen 3 both run on AMD's latest CPU for Chromebooks, while the 500e Chromebook Gen 3 is powered by a Jasper Lake Celeron N5100 or Pentium N6000 from Intel.

Retailers look to be clearing stock on the older GE75 to make room for the newer redesigned GE76. Now may be the time to jump in as the GeForce RTX 2070 Super is still very powerful even when compared to the newer mobile RTX 30 offerings.

The Pulse 15 by Tuxedo is a 15-inch Ultrabook with fast AMD Ryzen CPU and large battery. Throw in a matte IPS display and good input devices, and you've got yourself a decent overall package.

Qualcomm is rumoured to be developing a new high-end SoC for laptops this year, and someone may have already benchmarked it on Geekbench. The so-called Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 offers a huge performance leap over its predecessor and the Microsoft SQ2, with scores that rival the Core i7-1065G7 and Core i7-1165G7. The Apple M1 has the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 well beaten, though.

HP has upgraded its Envy 17 offering with Intel Tiger Lake and NVIDIA GeForce MX450 options. The 2021 HP Envy 17 also offers a 19% larger touchpad and is lighter than the previous generation weighing at 2.5 kg. Buyers can configure the Envy 17 with up to 32 GB RAM, 1 TB PCIe NVMe SSD, and a 4K color-calibrated OLED panel.

HP, today, introduced upgrades to its Envy x360 15 lineup. The 2021 HP Envy x360 now comes in AMD Ryzen 5000-U Lucienne and Intel 11th gen Core i5/Core i7 Tiger Lake offerings. The new Envy x360 models offer a few chassis design changes and also come with the option of a 4K OLED panel with 100% DCI-P3 coverage.

Xiaomi has started promoting an upcoming “Mega Launch” event that will take place at 19:30 GMT +8 on Monday March 29. The Chinese OEM has left it to fans to guess what will be unveiled, with the Xiaomi Mi Band 6, Mi 11 Pro, and Mi 11 Ultra already leading the speculation. It appears this will be a global product launch.

The display-standard specialist group TÜV Rheinland has announced its new Dynamic Privacy Filter certification, and that 2021's ThinkPads X1 Carbon and X1 Yoga are the first 2 devices to officially match up to it. The 2 business PCs have done so by passing a battery of tests on their ability to protect sensitive data under a variety of lighting conditions.

The first sign of AMD's top-tier laptop GPU has appeared. Based on the leak, AMD has equipped the Radeon RX 6800M with its Navi 22 GPU, the same one used for the RX 6700 XT.

How much can you expect from a fairly inexpensive convertible that comes with an Intel Ice Lake i5 processor, on-board graphics, and 8 GB of RAM at 800 Euros? Quite a bit, as our review of the Aspire Spin 3 SP314 shows.

The five new “Justin Gets Real” videos from Intel will likely make you laugh, but it seems unlikely that’s what Team Blue was gunning for when the company managed to snatch up "Get a Mac" veteran Justin Long to head its new anti-Mac “Go PC” ad campaign.

The upcoming Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and Pro 360 laptops have been revealed in all of their glory via a series of leaked press renders. The Galaxy Book Pro and Pro 360 devices boast of having AMOLED screens, 11th Gen Intel processors, and even an Nvidia dGPU choice for the 15-inch variants. Thunderbolt 4 is onboard while LTE connectivity is optional.

A new leak tells us about Intel Tiger Lake-H CPUs' base/boost clocks, cTDP, and GPU. Furthermore, it also confirms that the Intel Core i9-11980HK, Core i9-11900H, and Core i7-11800H will come with eight cores and sixteen threads, while the Core i5-11400H will cut that down to six cores and twelve threads.

NUVIA's CPU technology will be integrated in many upcoming Qualcomm products, including ultraportable laptop processors, smartphone chips, digital cockpits, AI-assisted driving, extended reality and infrastructure networking solutions.

Xiaomi has once again teased its upcoming Mi Notebook Pro with the Chinese firm promoting its slender profile. A published patent has also shown that Xiaomi might be planning on giving the potential Mi Pad 5 its very own stylus. Unsurprisingly, there seem to be not-so-subtle nods given to the MacBook Air and Apple Pencil for inspiration.

NVIDIA's game-streaming service GeForce NOW has announced the end of one membership type and the beginning of another. At US$9.99, the new Priority subscription costs more, but is also slated to add more benefits such as RTX ON and DLSS support in compatible titles. However, those with the original Founder's membership have their pricing locked in.

Another paper launch this soon after the RX 6700 XT release? MSRP is expected around $350, but we are not sure if actual retail prices could be close to those figures. Navi 23 will supposedly launch under the RX 6500 moniker and should also come along with mobile versions.

Not every single thing has to be perfect to get a good score. Despite small weaknesses, a device can prove to be quite impressive as our review of the Dell Inspiron 14 7400 shows.

Rumors concerning the possible unveiling and pricing strategy for numerous Apple Mac devices have surfaced. It has been alleged that a MacBook Pro 16 with 12-core M1X Apple Silicon will be joined by a redesigned mini-LED MacBook Pro 14 and mysterious ARM-based MacBook Air in being unveiled at some point in the fourth quarter of this year.

Cherry has successfully shrunk its mechanical keys for ultrathin laptops to make it theoretically possible for models like the MSI GS66, Aorus 15, or Asus Zephyrus to come with integrated Cherry keyboard options. The first laptops to sport the new Cherry keys will the Alienware m15 and m17.

The rubber-reinforced chassis promises to withstand drops of over two feet without being overwhelming thick or heavy for classroom environments. HDMI, USB-C, and even RJ-45 come standard.

Linux kernel code has revealed some details about AMD’s Van Gogh Ryzen 5000 ULV mobile APU series. Apparently, the processors will offer support for 256-bit DDR5 memory, which is a step up from Renoir APUs. Unsurprisingly, the appearance of an AMD APU with greater potential graphics processing has led to renewed Microsoft handheld/Xbox portable console rumors.

Thanks to the new UE4 DLSS plugin created in collaboration with Epic, game developers can now add DLSS support to their games in less than a day. The performance boost offered through the DLSS implementation can especially be seen in games with ray tracing enabled where the fps counts can be increased by 2.5X.

Xiaomi has been teasing the surprise appearance of a new Mi Notebook Pro laptop. The first Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro models were released in 2017 and haven’t been refreshed since, so it’s possible the 2021 variants might feature Intel Tiger Lake or AMD Ryzen 5000 processors.

Another Samsung laptop has appeared on Geekbench with a potent combination of Ampere-based GPU and Tiger Lake CPU. The possible Samsung Notebook 7 Force device featured an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti part and Intel Core i7-11800H chip, with the system producing an OpenCL result that sits very close to the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

We've already expressed our disappointment on the mobile GeForce RTX 30 series when compared to its desktop counterparts, but how does it fare against last year's mobile GeForce RTX 20 series? The data looks promising for mobile Ampere at least for the moment.

Dell is ridding last year's budget model for a fairly low price considering the balanced specifications. Some users may not like the visual design of the system, but the easy serviceability and Thunderbolt support are admirable nonetheless.

Who needs IPS when OLED costs about the same? The Asus ZenBook 13 UX325EA is now one of the cheapest Ultrabooks in the market with OLED options for superior image quality and colors than its IPS or QLED peers.

The GeForce RTX 3050 is on its way for laptops and has 4 GB of VRAM like the RTX 3050 Ti. Geekbench has seemingly confirmed that the entry-level dedicated graphics card will have 2,048 CUDA cores, while the PCI ID Repository suggests that NVIDIA has based the card on its GA107M GPU.

AMD has now made its 2021 line of Ryzen PRO mobile processors official. The OEM claims they build on the considerable leap in productivity-focused performance made by their 4000-series predecessors. This includes gains of up to 65% over the Intel Core i7-1185G7 in certain benchmarks, as well as reduced app-opening latency and improved performance in some MS Office tasks.

A Tiger Lake-H45 processor in the form of the Intel Core i7-11800H has been spotted on Geekbench, seemingly as a key component in a new Samsung Notebook 7 Force laptop. The i7-11800H hit 4.59 GHz and offered mixed results against the Intel Core i7-10875H and slight gains against the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H.

The Apple M1 processor has been placed at the top of PassMark’s latest single-thread performance chart for laptop chips, despite its average CPU Mark and single-thread rating having fallen slightly. This puts the hybrid M1 Apple Silicon, which is found in laptops and desktops, ahead of strong rivals such as the Ryzen 9 5900HX and Ryzen 9 5980HS.

Asus advertises the quad-array microphone as one of the main features of the ExpertBook, which costs upwards of 2000 Euros (~$2400). It is supposed to improve the video-conferencing experience. At the same time, Asus uses the same 720p web camera as in almost all other current laptops such as the 3000-Euro (~$3600) MacBook Pro. When most people have to use their web camera everyday to study or work from home, this has to change!

The Acer Aspire 5 A517 with the model number A517-52G-79Z5 offers the Intel i7-1165G7, 16 GB of RAM, and the GeForce MX350, among other things, for a good 1,000 Euros (~$1,192). It performed convincingly in many aspects in our test and hardly showed any weaknesses.

Intel's aging iGPU is holding back some high-end business convertibles from being even better. Fortunately, this will be the last generation before the EliteBook x360 1040 will drop Comet Lake-U for the vastly superior Tiger Lake series.

The engineering card appears to be equipped with CPU-grade heatsink + cooler and it is connected to an Alder Lake motherboard through a PCIe riser. Koduri does not really mention that this is the DG2 card, but the test system is running 3DMark with the Port Royal ray tracing test in the test suite, and we know only DG2 GPUs among Intel's upcoming discrete models support ray tracing.