Laptop

AMD’s Ryzen 7 4800U has already been discovered going through 3DMark 11’s punishing tests and a new run has thrown up even higher scores for the Renoir mobile chip. The Ryzen 4000 APU had managed to create quite a margin between itself and Intel’s Core i7-1065G7, with the new results demonstrating the Ryzen 7 4800U’s processing capabilities.

AMD’s Renoir APU, the Ryzen 7 4800HS, has been spotted in action again. This time, the mobile processor was tested on 3DMark’s Fire Strike Ultra test, with the physics score recorded as 21,254 points. This puts it way beyond a tested Intel Core i7-9700K on 18,934 points and not a million miles behind the powerful Core i9-9900K on 24,794 points.

All the talk and expectation around mobile silicon from Qualcomm this year is understandably focused on its beastly Snapdragon 865. However, there are to relatively new PCs on the market that are running PC-optimized versions of the 2019 flagship Snapdragon 855. These are of course, the Samsung Galaxy Book S and the Microsoft Surface Pro X. The Galaxy Book S runs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx while the while Microsoft’s Surface Pro X runs a custom variant of the 8cx dubbed the Microsoft SQ1. So, what are the differences between them and is there much of a difference in performance between the chipsets?

NVIDIA has now completed its fiscal 2020, which ended on January 26 this year. It has reported revenues of just over US$3 billion for its last quarter (4FQ2020), or 41% greater compared to 4FQ2019. The company's CEO has attributed this success to its "accelerated computing" concerns.

Setting Windows to High Performance mode could drop performance by as much as 90 percent. We're able to reproduce the bug quite easily by toggling the Windows power profiles while running the CineBench Multi-Thread test.

The demand for compact gaming laptops is increasing. With the XMG Core 15, Schenker is offering a suitable 15-inch notebook that is able to convince, besides having a few weaknesses.

The recent Samsung Galaxy S20 launch event also served to unveil the addition of the Live Caption feature to Google, in which video-call speech is converted into text in real time. Now, there is evidence that this function is also being ported to Chrome. This app's gerrit shows the integration of an API necessary to deliver it within the browser.

The latest Chrome OS update source code mentions the existence of Ryzen 7 3700C and Ryzen 3500C CPUs that appear to be derived from the Zen+ desktop-grade CPUs. Additionally, the code also includes references for Athlon Silver 3050C, Athlon Gold 3150C and Ryzen 3 3250C APUs that include Vega iGPUs.

After meeting earlier this week to discuss the viability of Mobile World Congress 2020, the GSMA has decided to cancel MWC 2020 due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus outbreak. Multiple companies have stated they would not be in attendance due to the epidemic earlier this month. In response, the GSMA has outright cancelled MWC in its entirety.

The internal slides leaked on the Chinese forum Saraba1st reveal impressive specs for the upcoming 17-inch X170 gaming laptops, including redesigned chassis with improved airflow, bigger speakers, slim-bezel displays, RGB lighting, upgraded cooling systems that support the latest 10-core-20-thread desktop-grade Comet Lake-S CPUs, plus USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 support.

The 768p touchscreen is so bad that tablet mode is rendered almost unusable. This type of display has no right to be on any laptop retailing for this high of a price. Save your $1000 for a HP Envy or Spectre instead.

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) has been inexorably rocked by a series of cancellations and withdrawals from the show. They have been made by an ever-growing list of companies, to which Intel and Vivo have most recently been added. The show's runners, the GSMA, will now meet on February 14, 2020 in order to determine the event's fate.

The optical drives are making a comeback, but it is only the old CD/DVD burners, not the more advanced Blu-ray ones, signaling that we are dealing with budget-oriented laptops. Users can choose among Comet Lake i3-10110U and i7-10510U builds with 8 GB of RAM and 512 GB NVMe SSDs, while the 15.6-inch displays are limited to FHD resolution.

Eve, or rather Eve Distribution as it has been called since late last year, has announced its next 2-in-1. Called Version 2.0 for the time being, the company is promising to deliver a Tiger Lake-powered 2-in-1 that will improve upon the original Eve V without abandoning its Surface Pro-esque design. Claims of unfulfilled orders and refund refusals continue to dog the company, though.

The all-AMD affair of the Ryzen 7 3750H and Radeon RX 5500M certainly provides a powerful base on which to play the latest triple-A games, but the MSI Alpha 15 falls short of expectations in other areas. The device not only runs loudly but it also has incredibly short battery life. If you can survive 36 dB(A) fans when idling and around 4 hours battery life between charges, then the MSI Alpha 15 is a good option for those after a mid-range gaming laptop.

Alienware, Vostro, Latitude, and Precision products will also be getting temporary price cuts across the board. Dell will be staggering deals throughout the week and we've collected some of the more notable items here.

Leaked Timespy scores hint at the existence of lower-tier Tiger Lake U SKUs. A massive difference between the 2.2 GHz and 2.7 GHz config scores implies that OEM cooling solutions could make or break performance.

AMD’s Ryzen 7 4800HS APU has been spotted on the Time Spy benchmark, where it performed remarkably well judging on the reported score. Surprisingly, the chip with a 35 W TDP managed to overtake the 45 W Ryzen 7 4800H, which will undoubtedly delight future gaming-laptop buyers. Once again, Intel’s Core i7-9700K desktop CPU had to play catch up.

We asked two major laptop makers and both arrived at similar conclusions. Though we understand the reasoning behind them, it's also a bummer that we likely won't see any laptops with the same high quality cameras as smartphones anytime soon.

A retailer has posted preliminary listings for some upcoming Asus laptops. They do not contain product images, however, based on their model numbers and listed specs, they are clearly destined for the high-end gaming markets. For example, one of them appears to be for a Ryzen 9 4900H-powered Zephyrus G14.

With the upgrade to the quad-core processor and the Touch Bar, both versions of the MacBook Pro 13 are closer than ever. There are still differences, but the more affordable laptop should be the better choice for the majority of users.

Lenovo prices the ThinkBook 15 at around US$870 for the new entry-level Intel Comet Lake variant. The Core i5-10210U-powered device also comes with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD, along with a 15.6-inch 1080p display. While that all sounds promising in theory, the device cannot get the most from its quad-core CPU.

Chargeasap, the company responsible for the Infinity Cable, has introduced another new product via Indiegogo. The Flash power bank is described as based on Tesla graphene-battery technology, which allows it to fill up at a maximal rate of 150 watts (W). It also purports to deliver 100W USB-Power Delivery (USB-PD) through a type C port, and that's not all.

Outlets seem to want these brand new 10 nm Core i7 laptops gone from their shelves as fast as possible. The high-end Spectre x360 13 Ice Lake is merely a few months old and yet its price has fallen by nearly 40 percent.

In terms of optimization, HP still has some work to do with its Ice Lake based notebooks. In our tests, the fan control is either annoying, or ensures a weak performance.

The refreshed SX14 lineup now integrates Comet Lake-U CPUs up to the i7-10710U hexa-core coupled to 8 or 16 GB of LPDDR3 RAM. No discrete GPUs here, but the more expensive variants come with a 4K display option and up to 1 TB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage.

Bethesda has finally announced when Fallout 76 players will receive Wastelanders, a free expansion for the game. The post-apocalyptic title will be extended on April 7 for all platforms, with the expansion featuring a host of new content. The release of Wastelanders coincides with the game finally reaching Steam too, but there are some caveats.

The Modern 15 is more than just an enlarged version of the Modern 14. Though they may share similar chassis styles and materials, their motherboards are completely different for some notable changes in port options, expansion options, and overall performance between them.

The AMD chips appear to be dominating the Intel and Nvidia counterparts when it comes to 3DMark's separate tests. Still, the Intel + Nvidia setup leads in the combined tests, showing that AMD might want to further optimize its chips for combo loads.

Compal has won an IF Design Award 2020 for its latest notebook, and for good reason. The PivoBook has a 14-inch OLED display that can be tilted into portrait mode without being removed from the rest of its form-factor, making it ideal for coders, writers or designers that also like content-consumption.

Breaking embargo, Ukrainian outlet Overclockers.ua posted a review of the Ryzen 4500U-powered Acer Aspire SF314. The review and benchmarks provide us with a clear picture of how the Ryzen 4000-series APU performs.

A Geekbench listing of the AMD Ryzen 5 4500U running on an Acer Swift 3 laptop has surfaced. The Ryzen 5 4500U shows good gains when compared to the Core i5-10210U in the Dell XPS 13 7390. While not on par with the Core i7-9750H in the XPS 15 7590, the Ryzen 5 4500U does bring in a significant gen-on-gen performance bump.

The "bring your own game" approach caters better to PC gamers because GeForce Now will be compatible with titles from your existing Steam, Origin, or Epic libraries. For $4.99 a month, subscribers can play their existing digital games on Nvidia's servers for up to six hours per month.

AMD informed the world at CES 2020 that the Radeon RX 5700M and RX 5600M would be arriving in laptops in 1H 2020, but offered nothing in the way of other details about its flagship laptop GPUs. Now, the company has confirmed that both will feature 2,304 stream processors, 36 compute units and GDDR6 VRAM. There is a caveat with the latter though, and it could hand an advantage to NVIDIA. In short, AMD could have blown it with the Radeon RX 5700M and RX 5600M before they even come to market.

Contrary to recent reports, NVIDIA is planning to bring at least six new laptop GPUs to market next month. The refresh is not straightforward either, with there being two RTX 2070 SKUs and possibly a non-SUPER version of the RTX 2060.

The MacBook Air is a well-known brand, so it makes sense for Apple to offer corresponding devices. However, both the performance and connectivity fall behind the competition, and Apple's own MacBook Pro 13 is a better alternative.

The ThinkPad T480s is the lighter and slimmer version of the standard ThinkPad T480 to strike a better balance between a traditional lightweight Ultrabook and a full-on business laptop. The Core i5-8250U may not be the newest, but performance isn't all that different from the pricier Core i5-10210U, either.

Project Athena was supposed to usher in the next generation of Intel-powered Ultrabooks with Thunderbolt 3, super-long runtimes, and thinner designs. But in reality, Athena is barely on anyone's radar as even OEMs seem to be avoiding the term in their advertisements.