Laptop

The German federal authorities have dedicated the country's entire C-band (or frequencies from 3.4 to 3.8 GHz) to the provision of 5G. This move is being applauded as it may result in more efficient deployment of the new mobile-data standard; on the other hand, there are those that see it as a governmental cash-grab.

The small 11.6-inch Chromebook will have integrated LTE capabilities catered specifically for use on Sprint's 4G network. Instead of giving it away for free as an incentive for new customers, however, the carrier will charge upfront for the device on top of the $15 per month wireless plan required to use it.

Microsoft is offering a sneak peek at its Black Friday deals for 2018. They include US$330 off the Surface Pro 6 bundled with its Type cover (in any color so long as it's black) and $310 off the Surface Pro Core M. There is also a range of XBox offers, including a Game Pass for $1 to new users.

Asus claims its PC builder business (mainly the motherboard sales) has suffered due to Intel's 14 nm CPU shortages. Overall profits have seen a 39% year-over-year decline and the next few quarters will continue to hit Asus's profits, as the shortages are expected to last until Q2 2019. The gaming PC and server businesses are unaffected by these problems, however.

The year 2018 is coming to a close. Time for new ThinkPad laptops: With the ThinkPad E490 and the ThinkPad E590, the first models of the upcoming generation have surfaced on sites of Korean registration-offices.

Acer's top-of-the-line Predator 700 laptop with GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q Graphics will be $700 off next week along with at least a dozen other models. The promotion will apply to major retailers including Newegg, Amazon, Costco, Best Buy, Fry's, and more.

The LG 17Z990, 17ZD990, 17ZB990, 17ZG990, and 17Z99 are all probably pointing to a new series of 17-inch devices as part of its existing family of Gram laptops. With CES less than two months away, there's a good chance that LG will have something up its sleeve to announce.

The October update for Windows 10 is currently being rolled out to the general public. For those in the Fast ring of the Insider Preview program, however, the build of the future is available to try out. This update, known as 19H1, includes an improved Light Theme and some other things Microsoft had promised.

Apple has released new models of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with AMD Radeon Pro Vega GPUs. The new MacBook Pros can be configured with either a Radeon Pro Vega 16 or Radeon Pro Vega 20. The new GPU option is only available for the most expensive 15-inch Macbook Pro and will start at US $3,049.

NVIDIA has released a new Game Ready driver that is available to download for RTX and GeForce GPUs. The new driver brings optimisations for Battlefield V, Fallout 76 and Hitman 2. The Game Ready driver also adds support for real-time ray tracing in Battlefield V for GeForce RTX GPUs.

The Core i9-8950HK is faster than the Core i7-8750H configuration, but how much faster is it when compared to the Core i5-8300H? Our direct benchmark comparisons show the Core i7 configuration performing closer than we initially anticipated to the pricier Core i9 option.

HP is ending the year with some 11.6-inch netbooks designed around classroom use. The ProBook benefits from many of the same security features found on EliteBooks like HP BIOSphere Gen4 while having pre-loaded software support for e-readers and classroom projects.

It appears that Dell's most recent BIOS releases for the XPS 15 9570 have caused a GPU bug in some devices. Originally reported on Reddit, some XPS 15 9570 laptops power limit throttle their NVIDIA GPUs until they hit a temperature threshold, causing noticeably worse performance in games.
Update:Further benchmarks on an XPS 15 9570 running BIOS 1.3 added.

Unbeknown to most users, other resellers have been offering the same Walmart design for months. Walmart, however, has the clear advantage in price and volume and is able to offer the same exact chassis and specifications for hundreds of dollars less.

Looking for a laptop with the Core i9-8950HK CPU? Then either Aorus or MSI would be your best bet if you want to get the most that the pricey Intel CPU can offer. We compare 9 different laptops equipped with the same Core i9 CPU to see which comes out on top or bottom.

LaCie, a subsidiary of Seagate, has released its latest portable SSD with USB type C. The company claims that it can transfer data at up to 540 MB/s and support up to USB 3.0 standards. The LaCie type C portable SSD is also supposedly shock-proof, despite its carefully styled 9mm-thick chassis.

Get the Blade 15 in light gray for the same price as the standard black at $2200 USD. Razer has been pushing its line of Blade laptops harder than ever these past two years with the refreshed Blade Pro and introduction of the Blade 15.

The 2018 Macbook Air comes with a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8210Y processor and 16GB of RAM at best. A suspicious new listing on Geekbench 4 details an Apple laptop with the same motherboard as the Macbook Air, but with a faster i7 chipset. Could this have been an early prototype, or is there a better class of affordable MacBook coming soon?

The team over at iFixIt has published a complete teardown of the new MacBook Air Retina. While soldered storage and an integrated keyboard count heavily against the device, new pull tabs under the battery and a separate logic board for the dual Thunderbolt 3 ports make some components easy (well, easier) to repair. Overall, the MacBook Air Retina scored a 3 out of 10 for repairability.

Panasonic has revealed a cluster of upgrades for its Toughbook 31 device. The newly enhanced version of the fully ruggedized notebook will now come with an Intel Core i5-7300U and 16 GB RAM as standard, and it will also feature improved communication equipment and a second battery option. The device will be available in the US in December, at a price starting from around US$3,699.

Nvidia's entire mobile Pascal GeForce lineup has been Max-Q-ified conveniently before CES 2019. With seemingly no other major Pascal or Max-Q products to release for laptops, the time looks ripe for an official announcement about mobile Turing in the coming months.

Intel has released a new graphics driver for 6th Generation Core processors onwards that is available now to download for Windows 10 devices. The driver has been optimised for the release of Football Manager 2019, and brings performance improvements and fixes for several other games including Warhammer Vermintide 2 and Assassins Creed Odyssey among others.

Asus and AUO are leading the charge when it comes to narrow bezel 17.3-inch laptops. With the ROG GL704 and TUF FX705 now shipping, we can expect competing OEMs to expand their respective lineup of 17-inch laptops by next year at the earliest.

Frank Azor has just confirmed that the new top end hardware configurations for the Alienware m15 gaming notebook will arrive in about 60 days if everything goes as expected. This means that both the high- and low-end configurations will probably arrive at the same time, most likely by mid-January.

Not a fan of carbon fiber? Dell will begin offering brushed aluminum options for its top Latitude laptops later this month. The unexpected cosmetic feature is a tease for more Latitude announcements to come in January.

Hotter temperatures and slower clock rates are expected, but how much of a performance dip can we really expect? Early benchmark tests show the i9-9900K trailing by about 10 percent or more when on a laptop compared to a full-size desktop PC.

5G adoption should explode in 2019 and MediaTek is ready to capitalize on it both with standalone 5G modems and 5G-enabled SoCs. The Taiwanese company would supply big names like Apple with standalone chips, while Chinese phone-makers would benefit from 5G-enabled mid-range SoCs that will help reduce the integration costs.

A new CVE may enable yet another side-channel exploit in Intel processors. This vulnerability, known as CVE-2018-5407 (or "PortSmash"), targets Hyper-Threading (or simultaneous multi-threading (SMT)). It is confirmed as effective in Skylake and Kaby Lake chips, and could affect others.

Since some think that an Intel Core i5 processor would be enough for their new gaming notebook, it seems that Alienware's latest machine will soon get new hardware options. Frank Azor has just confirmed that an i5+ GeForce GTX 1060 configuration for the Alienware m15 should arrive in about two months.

Latest Geekbench results suggest that the A12X Bionic SoC is closer than ever to Intel's top mobility CPUs. The single-core scores are pretty tight, however, the gap in multi-core mode is more noticeable. Still the A12 only lags behind by around 3,000 points, which means upcoming mobile chips from Apple could finally match Intel's solutions in 1-2 years.

The Precision 7530 is a powerful and hefty workstation, but it's definitely not smaller than the XPS 15. Dell has confirmed a minor measurement error on its product page and will update the dimension from 337.6 mm to a more accurate 375.92 mm.

The shares of the company Spotify were down 11% at the start of today (November 1, 2018) due to a forecast that shows relatively poor fourth-quarter performance. In addition, Spotify is now reported to be committed to new investments to boost innovation and future-proofing in its products.

Apple announced the new MacBook Air right at the start of todays special event. Included in the new Apple MacBook Air 2018 is a Retina screen and a new processor. Also, Apple updated the design of this very successful device today for the first time in years.

In a discussion about the latest Alienware laptop that unfolded on Twitter less than a day ago, Frank Azor highlighted the amazingly low weight of this portable — a detail that many forget about and focus on the notebook's thin design instead — and confirmed that an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 configuration is on its way.

As expected, Apple has unveiled a new Mac mini, MacBook Air and new iPad Pro models. However, one device that missed out on getting a chipset refresh was the 12-inch MacBook, leaving it essentially unchanged since June 2017 barring a new gold hue.

The world's biggest name in retail wants a piece of the gaming pie. The 15-inch OP Laptop 15 will carry narrow bezels, an i7-8750U CPU, GTX 1060 GPU, 144 Hz 1080p display, 256 GB SSD, and 16 GB RAM for $1400 USD when it launches on November 13. The series consists of Walmart-branded Tongfang barebone laptops.

The 8-inch convertible is off to a good start as far as user interest is concerned. Nearly 400 backers have already pledged an average of $450 USD each for the device. We obtained an early sample of the unit and can vouch for its robust chassis quality and stable CPU performance with minimal throttling.

Apart from the thin bezels and the redesigned corners, the 2018 iPad Pro tablets are said to come with IPS LCD touchscreens plus the second-gen Apple Pencils, slimmer profiles (not including the rear camera), a USB-C port and a smart connector, True Depth camera setups with Face ID support, and, of course the latest 7 nm A12 Bionic SoC.

Narrow bezel gaming laptops are finally starting to drop in price. The new Asus TUF FX505 is smaller than the outgoing thick-bezel FX504 but otherwise very similar in weight and thickness. The system is now shipping with GTX 1050 Ti graphics and a 1 TB primary HDD for $1100 USD.

Razer has managed to make its higher-end configurations look way overpriced by upping their baseline specifications. Users can get the entry-level Base Model Blade 15 and still have the same Core i7-8750H CPU and GTX 1060 Max-Q GPU as the higher-end model plus a few extras to boot.