Laptop

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.

It's been almost five months since the official reveal of Kaby Lake-G and there is only one manufacturer other than Intel currently shipping a Kaby Lake-G product. We put the pieces together to find out why there are so few of these systems in the market and why most manufacturers are staying silent on the matter.

A member survey of IT professionals done by Spiceworks has found Cortana to be the most widely implemented virtual assistant in North American and European businesses. Siri follows closely behind with Google Assistant and Alexa having significantly lower market shares. These results are an interesting contrast to consumer usage.

Today, Dell announced the newest generation of the Precision mobile workstation line. The core of that lineup are the two traditional workstation-models Precision 7530 and Precision 7730, which are being updated with the lastest GPUs, CPUs, more RAM and also a new chassis-design.

Dell has been number one in monitor sales for 17 straight quarters, and they are looking to continue this trend with the announcement of seven new and refreshed monitors. Three of the new models stand out because of their USB-C connections, giving us an indication of future trends as we move towards possible universal usage of USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 replacing various other non-compatible data and display standards.

Available in Platinum Silver and Brushed Onyx, the 15.6-inch Dell Precision 5530 is the brand's smallest mobile workstation. Its comprehensive list of hardware options includes 8th generation Intel Core i5, i7, and i9 processors, two IGZO 4 displays, NVIDIA Quadro P2000 graphics, as well as up to 32 GB of 2,666 MHz memory.

The new Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1 is a less powerful — but convertible — sibling of the 15.6-inch Precision 5530 mobile workstation. Its specs are similar to those of the Dell XPS 9575, but this mobile workstation features Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL graphics and is scheduled to hit the market in July/August.

Historically, when you think of Dell, you think conservative, “me too,” PC notebook designs. That changed with the debut of the stunning, but short-lived, Adamo range — and the arrival of Frank Azor among Dell’s ranks.

A new listing for the IdeaPad 530s has just appeared on Lenovo's European site. The mid-range device can be configured with up to an 8th gen Intel Core i7, 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of NVMe storage. The 530s can also pack up to an Nvidia MX150 GPU in a slightly smaller and lighter shell than the 520s.

Dell could be looking at offering new aspect ratios aside from the standard 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio in future notebooks. This was confirmed in a conference call by Frank Azor during the new XPS and Alienware reveal. Opting for non-standard aspect ratios can greatly enhance the tablet mode experience especially in 2-in-1 notebooks.

Gamers planning a trip to Panama City may just want to book a stay at the local Hilton hotel. Alienware has teamed up with the hotel’s management to create a gaming-themed room that is awesome enough to bring tears to the eyes of gamers who can’t bear the thought of a day away from their preferred battle royale title. The cost for such gaming-room luxury? US$349 a night.

The E485 model will feature a 14-inch 1366 x 768 IPS screen, while the E585 will come with a 15.6-inch FHD display. Hardware configurations for both variants are identical and include AMD Ryzen Mobile CPUs all the way up to Ryzen 7 2700U coupled with up to 32 GB of DDR4 RAM and up to 1 TB HDDs, plus up to 512 GB NVMe SSDs on select SKUs.

The Dell XPS 15 9570 could be available by the end of April according to Dell's Frank Azor. Pre-orders seem to be live at the moment but they require a purchase of a pre-order gift card via Cashstar, which has caused quite a flutter among prospective buyers.

Taiwanese computer manufacturer Asus has announced a rebranding for the AMD graphics cards that were previously part of the Republic of Gamers (ROG) line-up. The new name for the series is AREZ, which derives from Ares, the Greek god of war. The new AREZ-branded cards are expected to be available from May onwards.

The news comes just two weeks after the reveal of Coffee Lake-H. All models will utilize the same chassis as their respective G-Series equivalent with new fingerprint readers, vPro options, and SmartCard reader depending on the family. Expect the refreshed W series to begin shipping by the second half of this year.

The new Lenovo Air 2018 has a 15.6-inch display, an 82.7 percent screen-to-body ratio, and starts at US$923. The Lenovo 7000 has a 14-inch display, an 80.8 percent screen-to-body ratio, and the same starting price as its sibling. Both feature 8th generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processor choices, as well as the NVIDIA GeForce MX150 GPU.

Dell has launched the new Inspiron 13 7000 convertible and Inspiron 15 5000 notebooks powered by AMD Ryzen APUs without much fanfare. Both notebooks come with options of either the Ryzen 5 2500U or the Ryzen 7 2700U APU and are available in a range of price options. However, initial user reviews on Reddit have criticized Dell for reusing a 2016 Inspiron 13 7368 chassis.

The external NVMe SSDs from OWC are aimed at high-end users who create UHD content. Capacities range from 1 to 8 TB but prices are considerably higher than the mass produced NVMe solutions. Two ThunderBlade models can be connected in SoftRAID mode in order to provide increased read speeds of up to 3800 MB/s.

With the 2018 EliteBooks, HP has put a focus on premium-features such as a Unibody-design and higher-quality displays – which of course also raises the costs. To bridge the gap compared with its older EliteBooks, HP has released a refresh of its older EliteBook 840 G4, which brings the newest CPUs to the older design.

Reliance Jio, the largest cellular network provider in India, is teaming up with Qualcomm for an inexpensive Snapdragon-powered Windows 10 laptop with integrated LTE. No word yet on the exact SoC planned or if the notebook would be based on an existing design from a major manufacturer. The idea is similar in concept to Intel eSIM which has garnered a very slow adoption rate.

The refreshed X407/X507 ultrabooks are some of the slimmest models out there, featuring CPUs up to gen 7 Core i7-7500U coupled with up to 8 GB DDR4 RAM, Nvidia's GeForce MX110 GPUs, storage combos made of a 256 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD, Nanoedge IPS FHD displays with thin bezels, and fingerprint sensors compatible with Windows Hello.

Sales of desktop PCs and laptops are continuing their downward trend into the new year according to Gartner. While EMEA is seeing a slight uptick, the sharper declines in other regions worldwide paint a more pessimistic picture. This latest quarter marks the fourteenth in a row of slowing PC sales. Note that the data does not include iPads or Android tablets.

The flagship Huawei MateBook X may soon be accompanied by a mainstream Honor laptop offering. It's possible that Huawei wants to expand its product portfolio in an attempt to keep Xiaomi at bay. Beyond the April 19th announcement date, however, there is no word yet on the specifications of the supposed Honor MagicBook or what regions it will be available in.

HP has unveiled its latest Chromebook offering with the Chromebook x2. It is the first Chromebook to be offered in a detachable form factor and is powered by the Intel 7th generation Core m3 processor that can be paired with up to 8 GB LPDDR3 RAM. HP compares the Chromebook x2 to the iPad Pro and shows how the former is a better value for money in most aspects.

With the promise of all-day battery life, always-on LTE, and smartphone-like standby and resume, the first Windows 10 on ARM devices are here. Windows 10 on ARM may be great feat of engineering, but it does come with limitations unique to it, impacting what one can and cannot get out of an ARM-powered PC. Windows 10 on ARM is still in its infancy and, in its current manifestation, is better worth skipping for future refinements.

Market intelligence provider IDC has released a report detailing the state of the worldwide traditional PC market for the first quarter of 2018 (1Q18). According to the data, both Dell and HP have seen increases in market share in comparison to the first quarter of 2017 (1Q17). However, the total of global PC shipments for the quarter has experienced a flat year-on-year growth.

Exklim has launched a kickstarter campaign for their ultra-portable take on external GPU's. Equipped with a GTX 1050 MXM card and running solely on power provided by the Thunderbolt 3 connection removes the need for additional power supplies and makes this a solution that can really be tucked into a laptop bag. The eX Core is still in the kickstarter stage and the marketing material leans towards promising more than the device might be capable of, but nevertheless it is an interesting product that is worth keeping an eye on.

AMD has released OEM-specific variants of RX 500 GPUs for both desktop and mobile. Dubbed the RX 500X, this is a simple re-badging exercise for OEMs help in advertising new systems. The RX 500X series are exactly the same as their corresponding base parts but OEMs can tune their clock speeds for thermal and power reasons.

The refreshed G75 Titan gaming laptops are the only MSI series to pack the high-end i9 hexa-core mobility CPUs. The rather bulky chassis feature large intakes/exhausts and gamers can choose among several configurations that can include the more affordable i7 hexa-core CPUs coupled with 16/32 GB of DDR4-2666 RAM, GTX 1070/1080 GPUs, and a choice between FHD 3 ms TN or 4K 17.3-inch panels.

The Pavilion Power series is now the more aptly-named Pavilion Gaming series to tackle on the newly announced mainstream Dell G gaming series. Currently, SKUs are limited to a single 15.6-inch chassis but with a very wide range of CPU, GPU and display options up to the Core i7-8750H with Optane memory and GTX 1060 Max-Q graphics for $1020 USD.

The inexpensive FX504 gaming notebook comes equipped with a Coffee Lake-H CPU and GTX 1050 GPU for a starting price of only $700 USD. The system is intended to complement the recently revealed mainstream Zephyrus GM501 and enthusiast ROG G703 that are also shipping with Intel 8th gen Core ix CPUs.

A new desktop thin client and two new notebook thin clients from Fujitsu offer compact computing for businesses who use a centralized access server to protect company data and improve security. These thin clients run low-powered hardware but offer fast networking connections. The operating systems supported are eLux RP6 or Windows 10 IoT Enterprise.

The Fermi microarchitecture was first released 8 years ago, and was used in the 400, 500, 600 series on desktop and mobile, as well as the 700 and 800 series mobile cards. Nvidia has now stopped support for these GPUs, with a full list of affected cards in the article.