Laptop

Remember AMD Dual Graphics, Acer FrostCore, or the Lenovo UltraBay? We look back at some of the failed features that major OEMs have tried pushing onto their gaming laptops.

Atlas is a code-name that has popped up in a few Chromebook-related leaks over the past few months. It is linked to development by Google and has been thrown around as a Pixelbook successor. Now, 9to5Google's sources claim that it is indeed part of this series, but not perhaps as some may have assumed.

As promised, we have tested the Modern Standby Performance Improvement Package application for the XPS 15 9750 to determine what it has changed on Dell's prosumer 15.6-inch laptop. The package rolls together several existing updates as we previously reported but makes one important change too. Dell seems to have fixed Modern Standby for the XPS 15 9750, albeit by removing one feature that some people may find useful.

(Update: All fixed!) Asus could definitely be a little more careful next time around. According to the ZenBook 15 UX534 product page, the "ZenBook 16" will have a MicroSD reader and a Thunderbolt 3 port that could potentially fool the average consumer.

A Southeast Asian retail website has listed two Acer Nitro 5 laptops sporting AMD Ryzen 5 3550U processors. The new APU has been mentioned on various sites in the past but has not been made official by the red team yet. It’s expected the Ryzen 5 3550U APU will feature a powerful Vega 9 iGPU and offer clock rates ranging from 2.1 GHz to 3.7 GHz.
Update: Acer has contacted Notebookcheck to confirm that these SKUs will actually come with AMD Ryzen 5 3550H processors.

The new 495 chipset only brings a faster OPI COU interface that is capable of 4.2 GT/s data transfer speeds, Wi-Fi 6 and expanded Intel Optane memory support. Nothing new on the port selection and PCIe lanes side, unfortunately. Even though Ice Lake was supposed to introduce support for USB 4.0, there is no mention of this feature, either.

A new rumor claims that AMD and Microsoft have had a much closer partnership over the 15-inch version of the Surface Laptop 3 than previously thought. Initially reported by Roland Quandt at WinFuture, the rumor, an excerpt from a US price list, claims that Microsoft will release at least six distinct configurations. The series will apparently cost between US$999 and US$2,399, although two SKUs are apparently powered by unannounced Ryzen processors, which suggests that AMD and Microsoft are cooperating more deeply than we originally thought.

You'll no longer have to choose between resolution and refresh rate soon enough. 4K laptop displays with fast refresh rates are finally here for both ultra-smooth movements and crisper images. Previously, panels with native 120 Hz, 144 Hz, or 240 Hz native refresh rates were limited to a native resolution of only 1080p.

Dell's patent for a dual-display device was published by the WIPO last week detailing how the OEM plans to address some of the shortcoming of foldable displays such as consistency in brightness, color, and contrast levels. The patent also talks about addressing the problem of flexible OLED screen burn-in indicating that Dell is indeed working on releasing a foldable OLED dual-display laptop in the near future.

An interesting tip from a well-known leaker has seemingly revealed which AMD processors could find their way into Microsoft Surface devices in the not too distant future. It’s expected the new Surface Laptop 3 will be configured with an AMD-based option, and it appears buyers will be able to choose between the mysterious Ryzen 5 3550U and Ryzen 7 3750U.

Puro Sound Labs describes itself as "the world's leading manufacturer of premium, safe-listening headphones". It has developed the PuroGamer, a "studio-grade" headset with 50-millimeter (mm) graphene drivers for better audio at lower volumes. This product also has a noise-canceling, detachable boom mic.

Smart materials may prove to be the basis of the electronic components of the future. Their market's value was estimated at US$36 billion in 2017. That figure is now thought to grow until it hits $127 billion in 7 years from now.

Curve Digital & Kuju have announced that they are bringing a title based on the Netflix show Narcos to PCs and consoles. It will allow a user to play either for the Cartel in question or against it a DEA agent. This original content will be set in the 1980s El Patron era, and is available as a digital download from now.

On the bottom end of the spectrum is the Gigabyte Aero 15-Y9 which offers approximately 20 to 30 percent slower performance than the Razer despite carrying the same GPU by name. Power consumption, however, is also highest on the Razer system.

We all need a little fun. With Borderlands 3, Gearbox seamlessly carries the tradition of the loot shooter series forward: Brightly colored comic graphics and exuberant action are supposed to create a popcorn mood for players. In our benchmark test, we clarify whether the technology generates enthusiasm too.

The latest member of the C400-series of Chromebooks from Asus is a slightly more affordable version of the existing C434 model. Its specs are very similar, except it is missing the i7-8500Y CPU option and the 14-inch IPS FHD touchscreen has color gamut limited to 45%. On the plus side, the stereo speakers get a more ergonomic placement on the right and left chassis edges.

Anyone for a repeat of the Coffee Lake Refresh architecture? Well, Intel GFX CI bootlogs suggest that is what the Comet Lake H and S series will be. Does another 14 nm refinement and 2 MB per core of L3 cache on Hyper-Threaded chips sound familiar to you?

The Dragonfly convertible will differ from your typical gray EliteBook by its blue chassis designed to attract attention and breathe new colors to the Elite series. Expect availability in the weeks ahead since this Athena-certified system will run on the Intel 9th gen series instead of 10th gen.

The Intel Tiger Lake-U series may be over a year from the big time, but plenty of information about the 10 nm Ice Lake-U successor has appeared online. Last month we saw a UserBenchmark listing and now an Intel GFX CI bootlog spotted by @InstLatX64. It seems that Intel has a lot planned for Tiger Lake-U, but will it be enough to keep AMD at bay?

Latest reports claim that the upcoming Windows Core OS will offer a modular low-level platform running on desktops, laptops, VR machines, consoles and foldable devices. On top of it, Microsoft plans to add different variants of Windows to enable all the necessary features without any compromise.

A 6-core Comet Lake Intel Core i7-10710U has been put through the rigors of Cinebench R15 and R20 and has apparently struggled with the multi-core testing aspects of the benchmarks. AMD’s 15 W quad-core APU, the Ryzen 7 3700U, was able to achieve better scores in R15. The Intel chip is a part of the same MSI Prestige 15 laptop that was recently spotted on Geekbench and UserBenchmark.
MSI has stated that the performance discrepancy could be down to the Creator Center mode selected.

AMD is on track to deliver its next APUs next year, according to fresh Linux driver revisions. The two series, codenamed Dali and Renoir, are not based on the Navi architecture, but they should still offer improvements over existing Picasso APUs.

A 15-inch variant and AMD Ryzen 3000 SKUs? Those are the latest rumours about the Surface Laptop 3, with it seemingly being more than an iterative update as the Surface Laptop 2 was when Microsoft released it last year. Read on to find out everything we know about Microsoft's first AMD Surface collaboration.

Don't buy a laptop with GeForce RTX 2060 graphics if you want to maximize performance-per-dollar. The cheaper mobile GTX 1660 Ti is only about 5 percent slower than the mobile RTX 2060 while retailing for hundreds less. The mobile RTX 2060 can be up to 25 percent slower than the desktop RTX 2060 compared to "only" 10 to 15 percent between the mobile RTX 2070 and desktop RTX 2070.

Huawei has added the MateBook 13 for Linux, MateBook X Pro for Linux, and the MateBook 14 for Linux onto Vmall, the Chinese shopping site for Huawei and Honor products. The OEM has selected Deepin for the operating system, which has allowed the Chinese manufacturer to make modifications due to the nature of its open source software.

The experimental leather-aluminum premium netbook looks and feels like no other Ultrabook, but its disadvantages at launch have all but buried the system. Best Buy is offering decent discounts on the first generation Spectre Folio to suggest that HP may be ready to unveil a second generation model soon.

Leviton's new duplex wall socket also has in-built USB outputs. These welcome and increasingly welcome upgrades to electrical fittings are type-C ports with the Power Delivery (USB-PD) standard. This means they are rated to charge compatible devices at up to 30 watts.

GX is a version of the Opera browser specificially designed with gaming in mind. It has been available as an early-access build since June 2019, and has proved so popular that it has accrued over 1 million downloads to date. Opera GX offers Twitch support, a section for new releases and a network limiter.

Our 'Weekend Discussion' series asks questions and "what if" scenarios to our readers about how they use their smartphones, laptops, or other portable devices with the intention of encouraging insightful discussions. For this week, we want to know how you would feel about potentially losing the 3.5 mm audio jack on your next Ultrabook purchase.

LG has revealed that certain 2019 OLED TVs will gain G-SYNC compatibility via a firmware update. This will apply to 55- to 75-inch C9 and 55 or 65 inch E9 variants. The OEM asserts that this development will enhance immersion in gameplay using these devices.

The 8.9-inch emerging mini-laptop market welcomes the new MAG1 that weighs only 1.5 pounds and has a 0.7-inch profile. It packs an IPS touchscreen with 2,560 x 1,600 resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio and it is powered by Intel's Core m3-8100Y ULV CPU coupled with 8 or 16 GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 256 or 512 GB NVMe SSD storage.

On the outside, the new ThinkPad L13 and its sister model ThinkPad L13 Yoga have barely changed, despite a redesign. On the inside, there have been a lot of changes, which all point towards a stronger enterprise focus. We had the opportunity of taking a closer look at the new ThinkPad laptops at IFA 2019.

So you made the jump and just spent $1000 on a fresh new laptop. Here are the five first steps we think you should take to better protect your purchase and make sure you get everything that the laptop has to offer.

Our full review on the promising Intel chassis will follow in the weeks ahead. Intel thinks it can out-design gaming veterans like MSI, Asus, Alienware, Gigabyte, and Clevo with its very own chassis that we will be eager to put to the test.