Laptop

Although those who purchase the Dell XPS 15 9575 2-in-1 can already choose to have it in black, Frank Azor has recently confirmed that the Dell XPS 15 9570 laptop will not get such a color option anytime soon. The XPS 15 9570 is only available in a platinum silver finish and starts at US$999.99.

HP has announced refreshes to its Envy notebook lineup including the Envy 13, Envy 17, Envy x360 13, and Envy x360 15. The standout feature of these notebooks is the new minimalist chiseled appearance similar to the patterning found in sword blades made from Damascus steel. Internally, all notebooks receive an upgrade to the Intel 8th generation CPUs with the Envy x360 offering AMD Ryzen with Vega graphics options as well. The Envy x360 15 also sports a 650-nit bright panel for excellent outdoor legibility.

Intel Cannon Lake once was a very highly anticipated CPU-release. After massive delays, the first Intel CPU generation that is manufactured in the advanced 10 nanometer process has finally arrived – and it enters the market silently, in a low-budget device.

The service manual for the Dell XPS 15 9570 has been posted online and it looks like the notebook will sport a similar heatsink design with 2 heat pipes as its predecessor. This raises concerns about the possible throttling issues as the previous XPS 15 9560 had to be undervolted and thermal pads applied to the VRMs in order to prevent performance drops due to thermal throttling and power limits.

Taiwanese motherboard specialist Gigabyte has announced an entry into the SSD market. The company has published a press release detailing its new UD PRO Series. The series currently consists of just two SATA III drives: a 256 GB model and a 512 GB model. Prices are expected to be around US$68.99 for the 256 GB variant and US$119.99 for the larger drive.

With the 13-inch variant of the Yoga 730, users can get an FHD IPS touchscreen, and can opt for an i7-8550U or an i5-8250U CPU. They can further add 8 or 16 GB of DDR4 RAM and up to 512 GB of NVMe SSD storage. This model specifically impresses with the 2x Thunderbolt 3 connectors that come standard on any variant.

If the ROG Zephyrus seems too expensive for your budget, you may want to take a look at the ROG GU501GM instead. The more affordable GU501GM comes with almost the same design features, and the specs are still very solid, as it includes the i7-8750H six-core CPU, a GTX 1060 6 GB VRAM video card, 16 GB DDR4-2666 RAM, a 128 GB SSD + 1 TB Hybrid HDD, and a Thunderbolt 3 connector.

Lon Seidman recently hosted a podcast with Notebookcheck's own Douglas Black. Over the hour, Douglas discussed his work with Notebookcheck and UltrabookReview with Lon and the process behind writing reviews of laptops in the online era. The duo also discussed the laptop market at large and some interesting trends they are currently watching.

Today Lenovo announced the new IdeaPad 330 and IdeaPad 320S which they claim to meet the specifications, price, and looks that most consumers want in an affordable laptop. The Lenovo IdeaPad came about in the late 2000’s as a consumer-oriented counterpart to the hugely successful business-orientated ThinkPad. Dedicated GPU options include the MX110, MX130, MX150, and GTX 1050.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 530S is a relatively thin and light notebook compared to the screen sizes on offer and the price segment which it occupies. Equipped with a Core i7 (probably U-series), up to an MX150, and a 1440p display, this laptop will sit well with consumers who want a good looking and decently priced mid-sized computer.

Lenovo has released many ThinkPad laptops in this year already, but no models with AMD Ryzen so far. This apparently changes soon, as the new models ThinkPad A285 and A485 have been listed on the Lenovo website for the first time.

American computer manufacturer System76 has offered the company’s updated Oryx Pro for pre-order. For US$1,599, the buyer would receive a 15.6-inch, Ubuntu-based laptop sporting an i7-8750H processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, 8 GB RAM, and a 250 GB M.2 SSD. The official System76 website offers a generous amount of configurations for the Oryx Pro update.

The 7 nm manufacturing process will be superseded by the 5 nm one by 2020. Right now, TSMC is working to improve the extreme ultraviolet lithography tech that should lead to reduced power consumption and considerable performance gains for the 7+ nm chips in late 2018. TSMC estimates that the performance gains and power requirements will see minor improvements with the 5 nm stepping.

The latest solid state drives from Samsung have only just been launched, and they have already received price cuts. The tech giant announced the 970 Pro and Evo NVMe SSDs in April, with the devices being made available for purchase on May 7. It is now possible to obtain the drives at cheaper rates than the suggested retail prices listed in the April press release.

The UX550VE is being refreshed to the UX550GD with i5-8300H, i7-8750H, and even i9-8950HK SKUs. At just 18.9 mm thick, this would make the Asus notebook one of the thinnest to ship with a Core i9 processor. No other changes have been made to the chassis including the 8 to 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, FHD or 4K UHD touchscreen, glass trackpad, 1.5 mm keyboard keys, and selection of ports. Prices and availability are not yet known.

Responding to a question on Twitter, Frank Azor bluntly stated that the likelihood of a dedicated GPU making its way into Dell's XPS 13 2-in-1 is slim to none. "Don't hold your breath," said Azor, effectively squashing any hope of a variant of the convertible with a dGPU. However, is that such a bad thing?

An official Gigabyte UK representative confirmed that the mobility version of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 11xx series should arrive towards the end of the year. This pretty much confirms that the desktop versions are slated to be released this summer, as the mobility solutions usually get released a few months later.

Less than two days after two more powerful XPS 15 9570 configurations were listed on the official Dell website, two cheaper variants join the lineup. Starting at US$999.99, these models come with 8 GB of memory and 8th generation Intel Core processors (i5-8300H with a 5400 rpm 1 TB hybrid drive and i7-8750H with a 256 MB PCIe SSD).

Frank Azor has confirmed that the much anticipated Dell XPS 15 9570 notebook is likely to launch this week. This would be highly welcomed by those eager to lay their hands on the laptop as the ongoing Cashstar pre-order promo met with sharp criticism from prospective buyers.

By pulling the Inspiron Gaming notebooks away from the Inspiron series, Dell can now offer more options and sizes to better cater to budget-mainstream gamers who may not want to spend an arm and a leg on a hulking Alienware. The new Dell Gaming G series competes directly against the HP Pavilion Gaming series where the GTX 1050 and GTX 1060 Max-Q are common finds. No word yet on if future SKUs would also carry AMD options.

The Vostro 15 5000 gets a 40 percent price cut with a free Western Digital HDD thrown in for good measure on some deals. The promotion includes systems with 8th gen Intel Core ix CPUs as well. The timing of the price cuts are in line with the recent announcements of a refresh across the Precision and Wyse Thin Client families set to launch towards the end of the month.

When Chris Hook first announced he was leaving AMD, many analysts speculated that he could join Intel and his long-time partner Raja Koduri, who has been working for Intel since late 2017. Hook recently confirmed these rumors and explained he is starting a new marketing leadership role at Intel in Santa Clara. The two former AMD gurus will be working on the Arctic Sound and Jupiter Sound discrete GPUs with which Intel is planning to take on AMD and Nvidia.

Dell commissioned a study in collaboration with Researchscape to understand the PC gaming community. The study brings forth some new facts about gamers, their habits, and attitudes and breaks the typical stereotyping commonly associated with them.

It seems that the delay of the 10 nm Intel Cannon Lake processors and the current pricing of 32 GB memory modules compatible with Apple's requirements are both pushing the launch of the next-gen MacBook Pro to 2019. Two years ago, Apple was afraid that 32 GB of memory would require a different design with reduced battery space, but those fears are gone now.

There has been a growing wave of people in the community calling the Exklim eX Core a scam. Some feel that the eX Core fills a new niche, some think that it can't achieve the claimed performance, while others believe it doesn't exist at all. We haven't seen any working products and we don't endorse the eX Core, but we did feel it was important to give Edgar the chance to answer some of the communities questions.

Samsung recently divulged the name "Max-P" to describe the GTX 1060 GPU in its upcoming Odyssey Z gaming laptop before quietly removing the word. However, we can confirm that "Max-P" is simply a standard GPU without the Max-Q designation. The GTX 1050, 1050 Ti, 1060, 1070, and 1080 found on most gaming laptops are all technically "Max-P" graphics cards so long as they are not Max-Q GPUs.

Although the new XPS 15 2-in-1 (9575) was supposed to begin shipping more than a week ago, Frank Azor has just confirmed that many early adopters still have to receive their machines due to a delay that has been caused by "a small bad batch of the Mag lev keyboard." Even more, the i9 processor upgrade for the XPS 15 9570 is not available yet but will be added on May 10.

Dell has introduced a new SKU to its lineup that halves the storage capacity for a cheaper introductory price of $1300 USD. Core specifications are otherwise untouched from the Core i5-8305G CPU, FHD touchscreen, Radeon Vega M GL GPU, and 8 GB of DDR4 RAM. The new SKU is a smart move since the SSD in the XPS 15 9575 is easy to upgrade if necessary.

To enthusiasts, a primary SSD may seem like a no-brainer for new PCs. Unfortunately, everyday shoppers at most retailers are still drawn in by the higher capacities and lower price points that HDDs offer and not realize the immense performance benefits of SSDs. Two of the largest PC manufacturers in the world will purportedly push primary SSDs onto more budget and mainstream laptops in lieu of HDDs should NAND prices continue to decline.

After failing to turn a profit for the best part of the last decade, AMD has reported a net profit of US$81 million for the first quarter of 2018. The company can pin its turnaround on the success of its Ryzen chip family, which is putting pressure on Intel for the first time in years.

While it is still not clear if Samsung is going to release any foldable phones in 2018 or 2019, sleek 3D renders of a rumored Galaxy X model make an appearance in the wild, depicting a device with 1 external display and 2 other internal ones. The Smartphone can open up and act as a laptop powered by a light version of Windows 10, just like Microsoft's Surface Phone.

Samsung is refreshing its mid-range NVMe SSD lineup with the 970 Evo and Pro models that are using the latest version of the company's 64-layer 3D V-NAND memory chips. The Pro version is slightly faster but comes only in 512 GB and 1 TB capacities, while the Evo model has capacities ranging from 256 GB up to 2 TB.

According to Dell, Kaby Lake-G caters better to casual mainstream gamers while the Alienware brand will stick to hardcore gamers and enthusiasts with the familiar Intel H-series and Nvidia GTX GPUs. The Intel-AMD processors will instead be used for Dell's mainstream families like the XPS line to provide GTX 1050-level graphics.