Latest Tech News

Acer considers the Acer Predator Helios 300 one of its entry-level gaming laptops, except that it starts at US$1,199.99. While its Intel Core i7-9750H processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GPU can handle triple-A 1080p gaming, the new Helios 300 falls short of the performance that its competitors offer. Worse still, its battery life leaves plenty to be desired.

The Rock Pi S has finally made it to market, after being announced this summer. The miniature SBC is underpinned by a Rockchip RK3308 quad-core SoC, either 256 or 512 MB of RAM and 1 GB of NAND flash storage. The board has a microSD card slot too, Wi-Fi connectivity and a 26-pin GPIO header among other features. The Rock Pi S measures just 3.8 x 3.8 cm and starts at US$9.90. Orders will begin shipping globally from November 12.

It’s been a busy couple of days for AMD as the company has revealed four new products to its processor lineup. The red team has covered bases all the way from extremely affordable to high-end performance with its latest additions, which consist of two new Ryzen Threadripper chips, the “world’s most powerful 16-core desktop processor”, and a Vega 3-brandishing Athlon 3000G.

In a revealing interview, the current president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Jim Ryan, has been discussing PlayStation 5 business. The executive feels globalization is a vital concept behind future PlayStation success and has been proudly sharing feedback from developers about the ease of coding on the PS5. Ryan also stated that encouraging gamers to move from the PS4 to the PS5 is a key goal for the company.

The Xiaomi Mi Watch is here, and it costs just 1,299 CNY (~US$170). The spitting image of the Apple Watch runs Wear OS, although the MIUI version of it and features a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 4G chipset. The watch has a 570 mAh battery too that should last up to two days between charges. The Xiaomi Mi Watch will go on sale next week.

Evidence now points to the next Galaxy S series featuring "far-reaching" camera revolutions. The probably February or March 2020 bound devices look set to follow the likes of Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi in including powerful zoom capabilities, if the codenames "Hubble" and "Space Zoom" are anything to go by, anyway.

Our recent review of the Tecra X50 from Dynabook showed the sleek business Ultrabook to be quite the looker with little substance. Disappointing performance topped off with poor battery life leaves the Dynabook Tecra X50 wanting. There are much better options available.

Apple continues to dominate the smartwatch market, but is its latest iteration the best device of its kind? Part fashion accessory, part lifestyle smartwatch, but not a professional fitness tracker. We expected better battery life from a device that costs a minimum of US$399 too.

3 new Blade-series phones are now live on the ZTE website. 2 of these - the Blade 10 Prime and A7 Prime - are available through the carrier Visible. The Blade 10, on the other hand, is an unlocked device sold by the OEM itself.

OnePlus is now rolling OxygenOS 10.0.5 out for 7T users on this OEM's 'stable' update channel. There is also an Open Beta analog for the same. Those who own the 7 or 7 Pro and participate in this program also have a new build to try out.

The OEM Vivo held a press conference today (November 7, 2019) to introduce its X30, a phone that will ship with the dual-mode 5G chipset, Samsung's Exynos 980. Oddly, the phone itself was not displayed, nor was its spec-sheet. However, new leaks point to a 90 hertz (Hz) AMOLED display, a 4500mAh battery and a Pro variant.

Qualcomm has announced the results for its fiscal year, which ended on September 29, 2019. Its revenues came in at US$24.3 billion, or 7% more year-on-year (YoY). The company also made a total of $4.8 billion in the last quarter of this year (4Q2019), although this is a 50% reduction compared to 3Q2019.

Having a laptop with removable and upgradeable graphics has its benefits. Dell will help you upgrade to the GeForce RTX 2070 or RTX 2080 without needing to replace your entire Alienware Area-51m system.

Apple heralds its latest AirPods as a "Pro" product that offers amazing audio quality and immersive Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), but do they live up to the hype? Our time with them would suggest otherwise, although they will likely impress those who already own a set of AirPods. Audiophiles will probably be less enamoured by the US$250 wireless earbuds, though.

VR on smartphones is all but dead following the end of Samsung’s Galaxy VR ambitions and Google’s recent announcement that it has ceased development for its Daydream VR platform. However, in an inkling of hope for those who were sold on the idea, Google has open-sourced its Google Cardboard VR headset design so that it might have a second life.

Acer's stylish 14-inch subnotebook has a slim metal chassis, a Ryzen 5 APU and dual-channel RAM, which should all combine to deliver a decent device. The Swift 3 SF314-41 has an NVMe SSD and great battery life too, but two areas hold Acer's latest subnotebook back from being a real contender.

Pine64 started planning for a smartphone running on Linux last year and it looks like its vision is finally being realized. The PinePhone is nearly here and early adopters can put down some case on pre-orders from next week with the device shipping in late December through to January.

Artistic concept renders for the Apple iPhone 12 have offered fans an idea of what the Cupertino company could be planning for the next generation of its popular smartphone range. The notch is still present but slightly more modest, and the rear of the device sports a quad-camera setup. The conceptual iPhone 12 also features straighter edges than its most recent predecessors.

It can be easily argued that 2019 has been a standout year for AMD. Zen 2 Ryzen 3000 desktop processors have been shaking up benchmarks all over the place and the long-awaited Radeon RX 5000 series (“Navi”) has introduced RDNA architecture to the world. But AMD’s respected CEO, Lisa Su, understandably believes 2020 is going to be grander.

The Motorola One Power is now reportedly capable of running Android 10. However, before becoming eligible for this update, a user needs to sign in to the OEM's Feedback Network (or MFN) for that device. This may give them access to a build that, while at the cutting edge of the OS, lacks compatiblity with some potentially important features at present.

Samsung's Developer Conference (SDC) 2019 contained numerous interesting announcements, not the least that Tizen OS for TVs can be ported to third-party devices. In addition, there are now additional developer-friendly facilities for this part of the OEM's ecosystem. They include more granular user opt-outs for ads.

Packaging for a 3rd Gen Threadripper from AMD has been leaked. The box-within-a-box design features a square exterior case emblazoned with the famous orange Ryzen ring while the interior packaging resembles a sleek and even slightly futuristic somber gaming rig. It’s believed AMD will be releasing the Castle Peak Ryzen Threadrippers very soon.

Google provides hardware that runs its own OS with automatic updates for a fixed period of time after their release. This software policy applies to a range of devices, from Chromebooks to Chromebits, the end-of-life (EOL) of which is known as Auto Update Expiration (or AUE). 140 of these products have had their AUEs amended by 6 months to a year each.

While we were impressed with the OnePlus 7T Pro in our extensive review, the heat development under strong load and the resulting app crashes are an issue.

Xiaomi also promised details on a fifth generation of its smart TVs during the Mi CC9 Pro debut. The OEM made good on this - less expectedly, it introduced 2 new variants of the same during the event. The Mi TV 5 Pro is the one that gets the leaked 4K QLED panel, as well as some other impressive specs.

Pokémon GO will be getting a live AR multiplayer feature sometime soon. Currently called "Buddy Adventure," the feature will allow two players to interact with each other's Buddy Pokémon in real-time through their smartphone cameras. The feature is based on developer Niantic's real-time AR networking technology.

The Fossil Hybrid HR is a new hybrid smartwatch that mixed the traditional face and hands of a mechanical watch with an E Ink display for notification and fitness tracking information. The watch runs proprietary software rather than Wear OS, limiting the feature set. However, the Hybrid HR can still sync with Google Fit for fitness tracking.

DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused Google alternative, hit 50 million unique searches on November 4. This is a huge milestone that marks the continued growth for the private search engine. DuckDuckGo does not track user browsing history, relying solely on keyword frequency to improve its search results without intruding in its users' lives.

The rectangular camera is supposed to be equipped with advanced lenses that allow for 5X / 50 X digital magnification and it may be paired with a 108 MP sensor that is capable of 8K @ 30 fps video recordings. It is expected to be featured in one of Xiaomi's flagship model launching in 2020.

Apple released the first developer beta for iOS 13.3 yesterday. While the update seems to fix the RAM management issues discovered in iOS 13.2, it offers little else. In fact, a new bug in the iOS 13.3 beta disallows the use of Beats Solo Pro headphones; an iPhone running iOS 13.3 Beta 1 will not recognize the headphones at all.

A security researcher discovered the first worm to take advantage of the BlueKeep in older versions of Windows exploit disclosed earlier this year. Machine running Windows 7 and below have a critical security flaw that can allow attackers full access. This attack installed a Monero cryptocurrency miner without tripping any flags other than high CPU usage. Considering the number of organizations and government agencies that still rely on legacy Windows machines, BlueKeep could turn out to be a much larger threat than many realize.

Xerox is having an excellent year, as its shares are up 84% since late 2018, and the company is now considering buying HP for more than US$27 billion. All this in spite of HP being almost 3 times larger and netting a profit more than 5 times bigger in 2018. It is still unclear if Xerox would want to focus more on the printing business. HP's laptop and PC system business still brings quite a big chunk of profits, so the merger may not affect it too much.

Xiaomi has just unveiled its newest devices in Europe, the Mi Note 10 and Mi Note 10 Pro. Sadly, both devices are unlikely to be as attractive as fans of the company expected. For one, both feature mid-range SoCs, while being rather expensive—the Mi Note 10 Pro sporting a hefty €649 MSRP.

Although tomorrow's conference is expected to focus on the introduction of Samsung's dual-mode 5G AI chipset, Vivo is also supposed to unveil the Exynos 980-driven X30 phablet. Its specs will allegedly include a 90 Hz 6.5-inch AMOLED display, a 64 MP quad main camera, as well as a 32 MP selfie shooter.

Google has started rolling out Virtual Desks to Chromebooks giving users a power user feature typically seen in more fully-fledged operating systems like Windows and macOS. The latest update also includes a new Click-to-call feature and easier compatible printer selection.

Adobe has unveiled a new camera app for iOS and Android devices at the Adobe Max 2019 conference. Called Photoshop Camera, the app allows for live application of filters, effects, and scene adjustments by leveraging the company's Sensei AI platform. Photoshop Camera is now available as a limited preview with official launch expected in early 2020.

References to upcoming Navi 20-series GPUs, the Navi 21 Lite, Navi 22, and Navi 23, have surfaced in new Linux driver patches confirming that AMD's RDNA 2 development is on track. Not much information can be gleaned from the driver code itself apart from speculation that Navi 21 could shape-up to be a viable competitor to NVIDIA's upcoming Ampere offerings.

Microsoft isn't giving up on ARM for Windows. Much like the semi-custom Ryzen processors for the Surface Laptop 3 series, the new 13-inch Surface Pro X tablet will use a custom SQ1 processor developed by Qualcomm.

House of Marley's Exodus is a pair of premium over-ear headphones with 50-millimeter (mm) drivers and a sustainable provenance. Their latest refresh has active noise cancellation (ANC). They are also rated for a 28-hour battery life with this feature on, and up to 80 hours without.

Nokia is working on Android 10 for the 9 PureView. This is evidenced by the leaked build of the ROM for this phone posted to its XDA forum. This version of the OS is believed to be part of official development from the brand, and also exists for other devices such as the 7.1 and 6.1 Plus.

A few images of the Canon EOS Ra camera have been leaked. The full-frame mirrorless digital camera has been specifically designed for night shots and astrophotography. A price tag for the upcoming device has also been leaked; those looking for a dedicated star-shooter will be looking at paying just under US$2,500 for the body.

Google's new Pixel 4 phones have been faced with numerous challenges since they were launched a few weeks ago. Further compounding issues, the larger Pixel 4 XL just made its way to popular YouTube channel JerryRigEverything, where it failed rather painfully.

The recent Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield leak has been quite astonishing in its enormity and impact. The games themselves are scheduled for release on November 15 but it now seems the entire Pokédex has been revealed, with 400 Pokémon taking part. However, there are claims that the person behind the leak has been discovered by Nintendo.

Samsung launched PlayGalaxy Link with the Note 10 series. It is a service by which a PC connection makes the games thereon available for streaming via a corresponding app on these phones. Its latest beta extends compatibility to the S10 series.

AOPEN calls its new Chrome OS PC the "Commercial 2" as it asserts it is ready for demanding business environments. Besides its fanless, solid-state design, it is rated to withstand temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius. It can run 2 4K displays and is powered by the Intel Celeron 3865U.

The Mi CC9 Pro was launched today and the launch event saw a huge focus on the phone's penta-camera setup. The new device has now made its way to DxOMark and impressed, but DxOMark scores are never to be taken as gospel at the end of the day.

The advantages over current magnetic tape storage media include greatly increased durability and longevity, since quartz glass can withstand extreme temperatures and does not react to water. Additionally, the glass sheets offer improved scalability and reduced maintenance, plus simplified data retrieval through femtosecond laser encoding and machine learning algorithm decoding.

The Vector promises "unbeatable value" in the mid-range 15.6-inch gaming space. The chassis borrows heavily from the Intel white label chassis released just a few weeks ago but with a repositioned webcam and different dimensions.

The imminent trade agreement between the U.S. and China should reset all trade tariffs and allow for reduced prices on many electronic goods including computer parts, smartphones, displays etc. The agreement will most likely benefit Huawei, which will see all the bans lifted.

While recent leaks suggest that Apple will soon introduce the 16-inch MacBook Pro, they also point towards the device not living up to the hype. Current evidence indicates that the new MacBook Pro will neither sport a major redesign nor a higher screen-to-body ratio than the current 15-inch MacBook Pro. Sadly, the reality is likely to be far more mundane.