Notebook, Smartphone, and Tablet News

Xiaomi has announced the launch of its new mid-range device, the Mi 6X. The Mi 6X will succeed the Mi 5X that was released last year and could very well be repackaged as an Android One Mi A2 later in the year.

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.

Rumors of a Samsung Galaxy S9 Mini have been rife of recent but a new source has claimed that the device is, in fact, the S8 Lite—a mid-range device exclusive to the Chinese market. It will be joined by the A8 Star.

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.

Opera Touch is a new mobile browser from Opera Software that is only available for Android now, but an iOS version will arrive later this year as well. Its main highlight is Flow, a feature that syncs the desktop Opera browser with Opera Touch without requiring logins or authentication.

A launch event date for the OnePlus 6 flagship smartphone has finally been announced. The new device will be unveiled at a large arena in London, UK, on May 16. The Shenzhen-based manufacturer has also revealed another launch event that will take place in Beijing, China, on May 17. Tickets for the London launch event went on sale today.

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.

The Nokia X6 has just been leaked in fresh renders and if you were hoping that it would feature a notched display, your wishes have been granted. It will be the first device from the reborn brand to feature a notched display, but it will be among the more affordable Android designs like this on the market.

AMD has coupled first-generation Ryzen CPUs along with an MSI variant of Radeon RX 580 GPU and a compatible MSI motherboard in a bundle named 'Combat Crate'. The combat crates target gamers by providing them with the essentials for a new build in a single package for US$40 less compared to buying the components individually.

The developer channel for Google's Chrome browser ("Canary") is sport a new coat of paint as well as some useful features. While all of these changes may not make their way to the Stable channel, the new design language echoes what we've already seen in early builds of Android P and the leaked Gmail design refresh.

The forthcoming LG G7 ThinQ will be fighting an uphill battle as one of the handful of flagship Android smartphones still using an LCD display. However, its IPS LCD display will be armed with super brightness and high color accuracy.

The question “What is Fire TV Cube?” has been posted on a splash page on the Amazon website. Amazon Fire TV is a digital media player and microconsole created by the Seattle-based online shopping giant. Rumors of a cube-shaped device appeared before Amazon released the third-generation “pendant-style” Fire TV, and now it seems the Fire TV Cube is soon going to be a reality.

Fans of the strategy genre will be pleased to learn that the games BattleTech and Frostpunk have been released today. The former, developed by Harebrained Schemes, gives the player the opportunity to control enormous BattleMechs on a futuristic battlefield. The latter is a city-building title from 11 bit studios and is based in the past where civilization has been devastated by the extreme cold weather.

The Huawei P20 Pro rocked the smartphone world when it was launched a month ago. The device's tri-rear cameras and impressive image processing has seen critics hail it as debatably the best camera smartphone on the planet. However, some end users seem to think otherwise, and actually provide evidence pleading their cases.

The Nokia X6 will be Nokia's next device. The device is reportedly billed for an April 27 launch and is positioned between the Nokia 6 (2018) and the Nokia 7 Plus in the company's hierarchy of smartphones.

A report by Canalys has disclosed the current standings in the Indian smartphone market. The world's second-largest smartphone market belongs to Xiaomi, with the company boosting its stock over the first quarter of 2018 to reach an outstanding 31% market share.

Meizu, a while ago, launched its new 15-series devices. The devices offer fine hardware while sticking with some of the traditional features of Android phones—16:9 display, 3.5mm headphone jack, and no notch.

Thanks to a collaboration between Purism and UBports, the upcoming crowd-funded Librem 5 smartphone now officially supports Purism's own PureOS and Ubuntu Touch. Ubuntu Touch, which was abandoned by Canonical last year, was picked up by the UBports team for further development and may finally find a more permanent home on the Librem 5.

A press release from research company Gartner has stated that Samsung has overtaken Intel as the world’s largest semiconductor vendor. The figures for 2017 show the South Korean company gaining 14.2% of the global market share whilst their rivals in California managed 14.0%. Samsung’s top place has been partly attributed to revenue growth in the memory market.

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.

Unveiled back at MWC 2018, the Panasonic Toughpad FZ-M1 is now available in Europe starting at the equivalent of over US$2,500 (without taxes). The highlights of this rugged Windows 10 Pro tablet with a fanless design include a sunlight readable display, FLIR and 3D imaging, and many hardware options to choose from.

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.

The Tremont ultra-low voltage SoCs will presumably be manufactured using the 10 nm process and will feature most of the instruction sets that will be integrated in the upcoming Ice Lake desktop CPUs. Intel is making sure that the low budget/embedded PC market, together with the IoT one will be getting all the features found on the higher-end Core CPUs.

Vesta is a more advanced Alexa that can go about houses thanks to advanced cameras and computer vision systems that are currently featured in self-driving cars. Additionally, the domestic robot could come with a pair of robotic arms so it may be able to carry things around the house. The appearance may be humanoid in order to instill a sense of friendliness.

A newly discovered hardware exploit allows for the execution of arbitrary code on devices powered by Nvidia's Tegra processors. This includes Nintendo's wildly popular Switch, which has been under the scope of several hacking groups this past year. The new exploit functions at the boot level and is claimed to be "unpatchable."

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.

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.

Today Dell has announced three new models in their business and corporate orientated OptiPlex line of desktop computers, which are currently in their 25th year of production. These new models include two All-in-one (AIO) and a micro (ultra-small form factor) designs for more discrete office setups.

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 5491 and 5591 will target power users who need more performance than what Intel's U-Series of CPUs can offer. Both models will cram in 45 W Coffee Lake-H processors into a chassis design originally meant for 15 W Kaby Lake-R CPUs. The 5491 now also gains the TrackPoint nub that the 5490 omits, but nearly everything else remains the same.

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.

Just as promised, LG has issued a software update that brings the ThinQ set of artificial intelligence-driven photo capabilities to the LG V30 flagship. In addition to these features, the new software also includes a new startup screen, various improvements under the hood, and the security patch dated on March 1, 2018.

Although Skype for Business will remain alive and well on the iOS and Android handsets, as well as on Mac and Windows desktops, Microsoft decided to stop supporting it on Windows Phone. In addition to it, Microsoft Teams and Yammer for Windows-driven handsets will no longer be supported starting next month as well.

We no longer have to wait until May 2 for the official launch of the LG G7 to see it from every angle. A fresh leak from the renowned leaker Evan Blass shows the device from every angle confirming it has retained a headphone jack.

YouTube has released a Community Guidelines enforcement report that states the video-sharing website removed over 8.28 million videos from the platform during the last quarter of 2017. The majority of these videos, 6.68 million of them, were flagged by automatic processes rather than human flaggers. The company’s official blog states that almost 76% of the machine-flagged videos were taken down before receiving a single view.

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.

The esports industry is enjoying further rapid growth according to a report produced by The Esports Observer. Apparently, nearly US$2 billion has been invested in this gaming sector for the first quarter of 2018, with Tencent contributing over half of the funds. PUBG Corp has also offered a boost to esports by announcing a battle royale tournament with a prize pool worth over US$2 million.

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.

It appears that the phone call related APIs that Microsoft removed from Windows 10 in the Fall Creators Update have been added back again in Windows 10 Redstone 5 Build 17650, which rolled out to the 'Skip Ahead Insiders' channel. This could be another indication of an approaching Surface Phone release date.

Huawei's battles with the US government has ensured that the company's new P20 devices will not be sold in the country. Those in Canada can rest easy, though, as the devices will make their way over, and will be sold by all major carriers.

When AMD announced their second generation Ryzen processors a few days ago the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X was positioned at the top, rather than something like a 2800 or 2800X to match the Ryzen 7 1800X. However, AMD’s Senior Vice President, Jim Anderson, has hinted that we might see a 2800X at a later date.

In an email to the users, Flickr unveiled that it was acquired by the photography platform for visual storytellers SmugMug. Those who choose not to delete their accounts by May 25, 2018, will have all their content transferred to SmugMug. The others must download their photos/videos and delete their accounts by then.

Released last week, Avira's free Privacy Pal tool for Windows focuses on providing the user with a more precise level of control over the personal data collected and sent away by the web browsers and other apps. In addition to cookie, cache, or web history clearing, this app can also remove Skype chat logs or stop Cortana from tracking your location.

Almost one month after the release of the LG Stylo 3, we hear that the LG Stylo 4 is in the making. Sadly, the insiders who talked about it only mentioned that it will hit the US via Cricket Wireless, without saying anything about the specs and features of this upcoming mid-range Android phablet.

Asus has launched a new device. The Zenfone Max Pro M1 may have a sizeable name but it manages to cram in a slew of features into a package that comes with an extremely attractive price tag.

Although the upcoming OnePlus 6 flagship has no official launch date or price yet, both have been revealed in India. Last Thursday, MoneyControl published an article about this topic that was removed shortly after going online. According to it, the OnePlus 6 will launch on May 18 and will have a price of around US$602.

Although it still does not feature filters and themes or the ability to add text, the movie editor inside Google Photos has just received a new interface with a white color scheme, as well as new controls and commands that aim to improve the video editing capabilities of this popular app.

The AMD Ryzen 5 2400GE and Ryzen 3 2200GE are available with the same number of cores and threads as the 2400G and 2200G, but with a lower TDP of just 35 W. Other than the lowered frequencies and TDP, the new chips feature the same Vega 11 (2400GE) and Vega 8 (2200GE) iGPUs as their predecessors.

Our first Kaby Lake-G laptop to hit our database has returned some decent numbers to give even the Core i7-7700HQ and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 a run for their money. The 65 W Core i5-8305G may be the lowest CPU option available for the Dell convertible, but its performance is on par with an entry-level Pascal gaming notebook while being thinner and more versatile than most.

According to a leak, Leagoo is set to release a new flagship device—the Leagoo S10. Going by renders, this device, eh, borrows its design elements from smartphones like the Galaxy S9, Essential PH-1, and P20 Pro. An archetypal case of the saying: "Fake it till you make it."