Laptop

Intel has hinted that the first of its eagerly anticipated Xe discrete GPUs will launch in June 2020. The launch date has been discerned from a cryptic tweet posted by the head of the project and former AMD GPU chief Raja Koduri.

With Dell recently releasing a BIOS revision to improve the thermal stability of the XPS 15 9570, pictures of a decimated XPS 15 doing the rounds online may be concern those who are either considering the series for their next laptop or already own an XPS 15. The cause of the damage can affect any laptop though, and does not appear to be XPS 15 specific.

Nvidia’s successor to the Turing architecture powering its current line of Turing based RTX 20 series GPUs isn’t far away. According to the latest rumors, the graphics powerhouse will be releasing its new chips based on Samsung’s 7nm EUV process in the first half of 2020.

The MSI GL75 offers everything one would expect from a mid-range gaming laptop in 2019. Its high-refresh-rate display and excellent gaming performance are, unfortunately, marred by some annoying flaws. Loud fan noise spoils an otherwise adequate package.

Dell is currently offering two Inspiron laptops for less than US$200. Shoppers can pick up an AMD-powered Inspiron 11 3000 for US$179.99 or plump for the larger Intel-based Inspiron 14 3000 for just US$199.99. There’s also a terrific deal to be had on the Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 laptop, which has seen its price reduced by 37%.

Google has announced that Red Dead Redemption 2 will come to its Stadia platform on it November 2019 launch. The wildly popular Rockstar game will thus be available for streaming via the new service from its very first day. At present, it is not clear if this title will allow saving across platforms.

Walmart has partnered with THX to offer an inexpensive laptop powered by the latest mid-range AMD Ryzen CPUs. The model sports both narrow bezels and an aluminum chassis which are uncommon features at this price range.

Google has announced the re-institution of its Shopping service, albeit for users located in the US only. The company claims that the renewed feature can analyse millions of retail listings and other data in order to show customers the best deals. It is also now possible to order the resulting items directly through Google.

Expected to be released in early November via BIOS updates from all mobo manufacturers, the new CPU microcode is said to bring needed fixes, stability improvements and even new features to all Ryzen 3000 processors, as well as to the older 1000 / 2000-series.

The Dell Latitude 3400 offers excellent battery life, input devices and a wide selection of ports. Our review unit impressed us during our tests, not least because of its value for money. However, there is one area that could have people looking elsewhere.

Dell’s XPS 13 is now shipping as promised with a hexa-core CPU for the first time. The new 10th gen Intel Core i7 10710U brings six-core performance to 13-inch form factor that until now has typically been reserved for 15-inch or larger notebooks.

With some heavy tweaking and field-of-view reductions, Doom and Destiny 2: Shadowkeep can run at a locked 30 FPS in some scenarios. Still, we recommend at least a GeForce MX150 if you intend to play such intensive titles regularly.

If you've ever been the unlucky recipient of a damaged box due to careless handling or shipping, then the cushioned wooden crate option from Origin PC has got you covered.

The Apple MacBook Pro 13 continues to impress as a great subnotebook in 2019, even if it's just a cautious model update. Nevertheless, it's likely to be the optimal mobile companion for many users.

Microsoft has created a new ARM processor in collaboration with Qualcomm called the SQ1. The SQ1 is a redesigned Snapdragon 8cx with built-in LTE, 3 GHz max clock, a more powerful Adreno 685 GPU with 2.1 TFLOPS of performance, and 9 TFLOPS of AI performance. The features of the SQ1 processor will be exclusive to the Surface Pro X.

The first generations of the Surface Laptops were good laptops, but they had some drawbacks. One of them was that it was nearly impossible to repair these devices, as Microsoft used to glue the chassis shut. With the new Surface Laptop 3, Microsoft will now improve the repairability of its laptops to make them more attractive for enterprise customers.

Be prepared to carry around a bunch of adapters if you plan on buying the latest Surface Laptop. The newest models haven't improved upon one of the weakest aspects of the Surface Laptop 2 series to make alternatives like the Dell XPS series, HP Spectre series, or Asus ZenBook series appear more versatile.

AMD and Microsoft have collaborated to create the AMD Ryzen Microsoft Surface Edition processor — a Zen+ APU custom-built for the new 15-inch Surface Laptop 3. The Ryzen Microsoft Surface Edition constitutes two SKUs — Ryzen 5 3580U and Ryzen 7 3780U with Vega 9 and Vega 11 graphics respectively. The integrated Vega GPU also comes with an extra CU for enhanced compute performance.

The 15-inch variant of the IdeaPad S540 from Lenovo is new in our test. The all-rounder and entry-level gaming notebook arrives in a high-quality aluminum case and is able to convince in many areas, such as the display. Unfortunately, it also suffers from a significant weakness, which could have been avoided.

Along with its (impressively varied) new PCs, Microsoft also introduced its first-ever true wireless earbuds today (October 2, 2019). These Surface Earbuds are capable of noise-canceling and voice-activation features. However, they are also designed to carry out tasks such as slide-switching and translation during PowerPoint presentations.

The Surface Laptop 3 is here, and it is arriving in two variants. As per previous leaks, Microsoft has announced 13.5-inch and 15-inch variants of its next laptop. The 13.5-inch version comes with an Intel Ice Lake quad-core processor, while Microsoft has partnered with AMD to create a custom Ryzen chip for the 15-inch version. Both models come with USB Type-C, fast charging and better serviceability than the Surface Laptop 2 too. The Surface Laptop 3 will start at US$999 and will be available to order from October 22.

Preliminary reports position the upcoming Navi-14-based Radeon RX 5500 GPu as a direct competitor for Nvidia's GTX 1660 solutions. Even though the memory bus is not as wide compared to the Nvidia GPUs, the RX 5500 compensates with up to 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM plus higher core and memory clocks.

TSMC strikes back with a "retaliatory litigation", claiming that GlobalFoundries infringed on 25 of its patents that include FinFET designs for the 40 through 12 nm nodes. Unlike GlobalFoundries who sued TSMC's fab-less companies like Apple and Nvidia, TSMC is looking to halt all GlobalFoundries production and sale processes for the infringed nodes.

Prolific leaker Evan Blass has given us a look at the upcoming 13-inch and 15-inch versions of the Surface Laptop 3 a day early, with Microsoft expected to announce the series tomorrow at its next Surface hardware event. The photos, which look like marketing images, show the Surface Laptop 3 in four colours including Blue and Rose Gold, but fans of the current Red variant may be left disappointed.
Update: Roland Quandt confirms the full port selection of the 13-inch Surface Laptop 3.

While we aren't expecting to see any laptops with both the Core i7-8565U CPU and GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU, we could argue that the Core i7-8565U or any other ULV Core i7 CPU would pair very well with an entry-level Max-Q GPU like the GTX 1650 Max-Q. OEMs like Asus and Razer have already been investing in such Ultrabook-Gaming hybrid laptops.

DNS over HTTPS is a new way of connecting to websites proposed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in 2018. Google is reportedly working on implementing it in an upcoming version of its Chrome browser. However, an anti-trust task force associated with the US Congress has taken issue with this new measure.

A new registration of Microsoft's with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hints at a new accessory that could be launched tomorrow in conjunction with the Surface 7 line. It is a wireless charger with a 300 milliwatt capacity. This is also more evidence that the next Surface Pen may go with the same device.

If you're looking for a cheap gaming laptop from Lenovo and don't have excessively high requirements, you can have fun with games in Full HD for less than 800 Euros (~$872). However, minor weaknesses must also be accepted with the price.

Dell recently released a new BIOS revision for the XPS 15 9570, so we thought we would test it. Despite reports to the contrary, the update does not break USB Type-C charging, nor does it have any negative effects on performance either. Read on to find out our experiences with BIOS 1.13.0 for the XPS 15 9570.

The new convertible has a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio and a 13 percent smaller footprint than the 2018 model. It's also slightly thicker with a larger cooling solution in order to accommodate the more graphically capable Core i7-1065G7 CPU.

The slowest laptop with the Core i9-9980HK is the Dell XPS 15 7590 which the Core i9-9880H can outperform by as much 25 percent. If you're out looking for the "ultimate" Core i9 performance on mobile, the i9-9980HK offers only a marginal boost over the fastest i9-9880H laptop in the best of scenarios.

Chuwi's least expensive 4K laptop gets even cheaper with a sizable price cut and a free carrying bag for the first 200 orders.

Visionox is a company involved in the manufacture of flexible display panels. Its latest trick has been the Mi Mix Alpha, Xiaomi's new limited-edition wraparound-screen phone. It has recently opened a new assembly line on which similar screens measuring up to 18 inches can be produced.

The Compubench site has added a listing for a "genuine" Intel CPU that is integrated with a "Gen12 Mobile Graphics Controller". This, then, may be the integrated graphics solution that is said to launch alongside Tiger Lake chipsets. The benchmark indicates that it has 96 execution units (EUs) and goes at 1.1GHz.

The x86 architecture has been hitting something of a wall lately but AMD looks like it could be set to inject it with a fresh breath of life. According to the rumor mill, the company has finalized the Zen 3 design and it introduces a new SMT4 feature that will allow each core to execute four threads simultaneously.

It's becoming more difficult to justify carrying around a laptop with GeForce RTX 2080 graphics when you can simply harness that power from the cloud or an external GPU docking station. Alternatives like eGPUs and game streaming services will make conventional gaming laptops a hard sell in the near future.