Latest Tech News

Lenovo US has announced a major sales event running for this weekend only, with up to 70% off some PCs of various types. Among these are the 7th- and 8th-gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon ultrabooks, which are down to under US$1000 in some cases. The Ryzen 7 Pro 3700U-powered T495s also features here at an excellent price.

An extraordinary new rumor about Xiaomi claims the Chinese OEM is preparing to launch new external gaming monitors offering 240 Hz and mighty 360 Hz refresh rates. According to one source, prices will start at 999 yuan (US$148), and it is likely Xiaomi’s 360 Hz monitor will be more affordable than the Asus ROG Swift 360 panel.

New live images of the PlayStation 5 have found their way online, and although Sony has already revealed the exact dimensions of the next-gen console, it is quite startling just how big the device looks when horizontal. Vertical positioning might be optimal, especially for those who plump for a plump PS5 with disc drive.

Insider reports suggest that the OnePlus 8T will be released on October 14. It is likely to be accompanied by the sub-US$200 OnePlus Clover and the OnePlus Watch. OnePlus is yet to officially confirm the date, but we should know for sure in the coming days.

The powerful Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 desktop graphics card has become the new champion of UserBenchmark’s GPU comparison chart. Not only has the RTX 3090 removed fellow Ampere card RTX 3080 from the top of the table, it is also the only part that has an average benchmark rating that surpasses 200%.

More details of Xiaomi’s Gauguin and Gauguin Pro smartphones have appeared online, leading to speculation that one of them could be launched as a Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite device on the European market and possibly further abroad. This potential Mi 10T Lite would be a sub-€300 (US$355) 5G smartphone with either a 64 MP or 108 MP main camera.
The name "Mi 10T Lite" has been confirmed via the FCC.

Cloud gaming allows PC gamers to stream their titles via any device rather than load them on a high-powered rig. AirConsole is a company that claims to do much the same for console games. However, in its case, the user's smartphone is used as the controller and a big screen is required. This service is now expanding to Android TVs for this purpose.

Google has indicated that it will launch new smart home products alongside the Pixels 5 and 4a (5G) at these smartphones' launch at the end of September. However, a leaks site may have spoiled any surprise left in conjunction with these devices. WinFuture purports to confirm that they will be a fresh take on the Nest speaker and Chromecast, and to have genuine product images of both.

The Pocophone F1 has started receiving MIUI 12, Xiaomi's latest OS. Based on Android 10, MIUI 12 for the Pocophone F1 is only being rolled out to Russian handsets for the time being, but it can be downloaded manually.

Gigabyte has released a blow and dual-slot version of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090. The GeForce RTX 3090 TURBO 24G also has a 350 W TDP, to add to the fun of owning a blower RTX 3090.

For a short time, Football Manager 2020 and Watch Dogs 2 can now be download completely free of charge. Better yet, the two games can be kept forever. Both games can be downloaded on Windows, while Football Manager is also available on Mac.

Xiaomi is now sending out new updates to some of its phones, with the Redmi Note 8 and Mi A2 Lite getting OTAs. For the Redmi Note 8, two updates have been sent, to the global and Indian models of the devices. Owners of the global model of the Mi A2 Lite should now also be getting the September patch.

The Royole FlexPai 2 has reached the TENAA and AnTuTu, shortly before its release on September 21. The foldable smartphone will have a 7.8-inch AMOLED screen, a Snapdragon 865 chipset and up to 12 GB of RAM with 256 GB of storage.

A Finnish retailer has listed the Polar Vantage V2, prompting speculation that Polar is on the verge of releasing a new smartwatch. Polar released the Vantage V in 2018, so an update is in order.

Leaked Galaxy S20 FE hands-on images have confirmed that Samsung has equipped its next smartphone with a flat-screen, and a plastic back. It looks like the 5G model will be roughly 10% more expensive than the 4G model, effectively making Samsung fans pay a premium for having a Snapdragon 865 instead of the lesser Exynos 990.

The renders are based on the specs leaked by industry insider Jon Prosser and depict the foldable iPhone featuring an inner display that consists of two hingeless screens similar to the Microsoft Surface Duo design. Artist theHacker34 also lists some specs that are probably on his wishlist, as no other source has mentioned some of these.

Extreme overclocker Ronaldo Buassali achieved the highest-ever 3DMark Time Spy score on a highly overclocked GeForce RTX 3080, managing over 10,000 with a 2.3 GHz core clock.

Gigabyte's Watch Dogs Legion redemption site includes a list with all eligible cards, and, among these, we can spot the unannounced RTX 3060 with 8 GB of VRAM, along with two RTX 3070 GPUs packing 16 GB VRAM and three SKUs for the RTX 3080 featuring 20 GB VRAM. Presumably, all these will bear the Super denomination.

We now have our first look at the Snapdragon 875 and Exynos 1000's Geekbench scores. The latter convincingly outperforms the former, with a single-core score of 1327 and a multi-core score of 4250. It is also worth noting that those numbers are within spitting distance of the Apple A13 Bionic.

Apple recently seeded the developer demo for iOS 14.2 and iPadOS 14.2, seemingly skipping over iOS 14.1 and iPadOS 14.1. While we're not sure of the reason for the nomenclature change, iPadOS and iOS 14.2 both introduce minor updates, chief of which is better Shazam integration for music aficionados.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) CEO Jim Ryan has expressly stated that there will be no backwards compatibility (BC) to the PS1, PS2, and PS3 for the upcoming PlayStation 5. However, just as the PS5 BC question appeared to be put to bed, social media commenter HipHopGamer claimed that disc-based full BC was still a thing.

A leak suggests that the Exynos 1000 will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 875's 1+3+4 core configuration. Both chips will likely use modified versions of ARM's Cortex-X1 super core and Cortex-A78 cores. The move could help Samsung bridge the ever-widening gap between its in-house silicon and Qualcomm's offerings.

The latest Game Ready driver package from NVIDIA arrived yesterday and comes with day-one optimizations for Halo 3: ODST and Mafia: Definitive Edition, ray tracing and DLSS support for Fortnite, NVIDIA Reflex latency optimization in Fortnite and Valorant, support for the new GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, and more.

Sony has published all of the official specifications for both the PlayStation 5 and DualSense controller. While no rumored spec bump materialized, at least gamers finally found out what was on the rear of the console. The dimensions section confirms the PS5 is even slightly taller than what was previously estimated.

We take a glimpse of what Intel's next generation of integrated graphics can do and it's pretty good for a 10 nm non-discrete solution. Now, Intel will have to price it just right to make it worth the purchase over existing Ryzen or GeForce MX-powered laptops that offer similar graphics performance.

The Redmi K40 Pro will be Redmi's next-gen premium device, and initial details of the phone have now surfaced. Notable takeaways include a more powerful chipset than the Snapdragon 865 on the Redmi K30 Pro, more impressive camera hardware, bigger battery, and faster charging.

This compact $89 USD power bank can hold a respectable 63 Wh charge to be perfect for hikes or camping trips with multiple people. Recharging the bank itself, however, is almost three times slower than on most laptops.

The Aspire 3 is a 17.3-inch laptop for the desk at home. The device scores points with a Comet Lake quad-core processor, a GeForce graphics core, and lots of storage capacity.

The reseller hopes to accelerate the adoption of Advanced Optimus. The existing MECH-15 and MAX-15 laptops will get new Core i7-10870H processors in addition to the Nvidia feature in the next couple of months.

Earlier, Qualcomm and its 5G research partners reported that it had conducted a data call over mmWave bands over the longest distance yet. Now, this record has been broken again in a new experiment, which took place in Wisconsin.

The most noteworthy thing in our review of the Redmi 9 was the hardware package. Despite a low price of 130 Euros (MSRP: 150 Euros), the Xiaomi smartphone comes with a very reasonable specifications sheet. It even features an NFC chip.

The Xperia 1 II will not receive Android 11 until the Xperia 5 II launches, according to a new report. The Xperia 5 II has multiple launch dates, so it may not be until December before the Xperia 1 II sees Android 11.

A second colour of the Google Pixel 4a has been uncovered. The location of the finding confirms that Google was close to releasing the Pixel 4a in two colours rather than Just Black, as is currently the case.

Sony may enable two of the display features of the Xperia 5 II on the Xperia 1 II, according to a new report. Apparently, the Xperia 1 II has had a 120 Hz display from the beginning, despite being limited to 60 Hz.

Product images of the 85-inch Surface Hub 2S have leaked online, confirming several specifications about the interactive whiteboard. Microsoft announced the device almost 18 months ago but the Surface Hub project has stalled since then.

Huawei has completed its EMUI 10.1 upgrade plan in two more regions. All Huawei devices in Africa and the Middle East should have now received EMUI 10.1, shortly before the company starts rolling out EMUI 11, its new in-house version of Android.

The Xperia 5 II will be available to pre-order in some countries from September 29, Sony has confirmed. The Xperia 5 II is significantly cheaper than the Xperia 1 II, but it is several hundred dollars more expensive than the Xperia 5.

The poor Wi-Fi, unreliable MicroSD reader, pulsing fan, and scorching high core temperature will reportedly all be fixed when backers receive their units next month. GMK has acknowledged these problems and is actively fixing them.

Apple’s A14 Bionic SoC reveal indicated what might be the smallest generation on generation leap we’ve seen to date from Cupertino. Is the near-static performance due to issues with the 5nm process? Or did Apple just fire the last shots in a smartphone spec war that’s spiralled out of control?

Apple's latest A14 Bionic chip has just made an appearance on AnTuTu. It nets a total score of 572,333, which is significantly lesser than that of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 865+. The low number could likely be due to unstable software, so we should take the results with a grain of salt.

Huawei is said to have only 8.8 million Kirin 9000 SoCs for its next, and possibly last, flagship smartphone -- at least in the short term. Thanks to Trump Administration sanctions, the company has been left high and dry as far as components made using US technologies go.

Details about the Radeon RX 6000 series have started flowing out, six weeks before AMD launches its next graphics cards. According to a new report, the RDNA 2 cards will offer up to 80 CUs, a 256-bit memory interface and 128 MB of Infinity Cache. 300 W will likely be a target TDP for high-end RX 6000 series cards, as will clock speeds that will rival the 2.2 GHz GPU clock of the PlayStation 5.

Photos of Radeon RX 6000 and RDNA 2 cards are starting to flooding out, this time from RedGamingTech. The triple-fan card features plenty of I/O and a thick design. Thought to be the Radeon RX 6900 XT, the card will be joined next month by lower-end SKUs, too.

An Epic Games account is now a requirement to play Rocket League, as of the latest update for the game. There is now no way to play Rocket League without having an Epic Games account, and Epic Games will happily break data protection regulations to get you to create one. Psyonix has overhauled the UI too, while removing the quick play button in the process.

The new RTX 3080 FE cards represent a reasonable progress for those looking to improve performance in 4K games, but the lower resolutions do not really benefit from substantial gains, unfortunately. Additionally, the 10 GB VRAM capacity appears to hinder the power of the new ray tracing cores.

The battery capacity of the Galaxy S21 Ultra has been revealed, and it seems that Samsung is happy with the 5,000 mAh battery from the S20 Ultra. In fact, only the Plus model is in the frame to receive a larger battery of the S21 series.

Redmi has announced its new A Series of smart TVs for the Chinese market. The series will initially consist of five different-sized devices, with the Redmi Smart TV A55 being the first one to launch. Xiaomi is offering this 55-inch 4K TV, which runs on MIUI for TV, at a special discounted rate of 1,777 yuan (US$262).

Fans of the Mi 9T Pro may have been expecting the upcoming Mi 10T Pro to offer a similar performance-to-price proposition. Those hopes have now been crushed brutally, with a new leak confirming that the Mi 10T Pro will carry an MSRP up to €300 higher than that of last year's Mi 9T Pro.

The critically-acclaimed stealth-action shooter Splinter Cell is all set to make a comeback. However, it will be released exclusively on Oculus VR. We can expect Ubisoft to tell us more about the game in the coming weeks.

PlayStation 5 pre-ordering has become chaotic as fans desperately try to reserve one of Sony’s next-gen consoles. While prices for the PS5 console have tipped past US$2,000 on eBay, some have been left wondering if Sony’s pre-order plan was to simply beat Microsoft to the punch rather than give gamers ample warning time.