Latest Tech News

Strangely enough, the Razer Blade Pro 17 is set to Balanced mode by default instead of High Performance. The problem is that High Performance mode offers significantly faster CPU clock rates than Balanced mode and it's not entirely self-explanatory on how to set the system to High Performance mode. Users must rely on the Razer Synapse software and not the Windows Power Options menu that we're all already familiar with.

A part of nature, or apart from it? A new (2019) study from Exeter Medical School suggests that you may want to spend a minimum of 2 hours per week immersed in natural settings to avoid a litany of physical and mental health problems.

An image showing supposedly leaked CPU-Z single-core benchmark scores has been shared online that shows Intel’s Sunny Cove core microarchitecture in a very good light. The processors involved in the purported test also include three members of AMD’s vaunted Matisse Ryzen 3000 series and a Comet Lake ES (Engineering Sample) from Intel.

It appears Intel’s Ice Lake generation CPU i7-1065G7 has recently been tested on PassMark and has managed to come up with a noteworthy result. Not only did the processor from the blue team zip past AMD’s power-efficient Ryzen 5 3500U APU, the Ice Lake chip even outpaced the more power-hungry Ryzen 7 3750H.

The company is still burying its heads in the sand over why some XPS 15 9570 laptops are getting hot and experiencing high battery drain when asleep. The company has added having an outdated BIOS and drivers along with wake on Wi-Fi enabled to the reasons that could cause the behaviour but without recognising that forcing people to use Modern Standby could be the cause. Well done, Dell.

A new day, a new set of Pixel 4 CAD renders. This time, concept designer Ben Geskin has given his followers a look at what could become the front of the device. While no-one doubts the quality of his work, the design of Google's upcoming flagship has been called into question by many people online.

The Nova 5 is the next major smartphone release from the OEM Huawei. Some rumors surrounding this device suggest that it is getting a 32MP selfie camera in its waterdrop notch. Today, (June 17, 2019) this was officially confirmed via Weibo. Other rumors suggest that this device will be powered by the Kirin 810.

After the successful completion of its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, the Chargerito phone charger is now up for sale. Priced at US$25, this accessory only measures 2x0.6x1.8 inches and can deliver a 5 V, 1 A, 5 W output. Available in both micro USB and USB Type-C versions, this accessory can be easily stored thanks to its folding prongs.

Qualcomm claims that the audio codec integrated into its flagship mobile SoCs can rival DACs produced by dedicated manufacturers. Its latest iteration of these are found in the new Snapdragon 730 mid-range chipsets. They are called the WCD9370 and WCD9375 Aqstic codecs.

Several developers have been working to port Android to the Nintendo Switch since at least February 2019. Now, it appears that this work has paid off and the conversion is nearly fully-functional. The latest build for this console reportedly exhibits working WiFi, important apps, games and audio.

If you were among those hoping for the Samsung Galaxy Fold to make a quick comeback after its pre-launch reviews debacle, you might need to put those hopes on ice. When asked whether the device would be launching in July, a Samsung official has told The Korea Herald that little progress has been made since the crisis surrounding the phone erupted in April.

Huawei is forecasting a calamitous drop in smartphones sales across the globe following the Trump Administration's decision to blacklist the Chinese company. According to Bloomberg, the embattled company is expecting sales to drop by between 40 million to 60 million units torpedoing its ambitions to overtake Samsung as the number one smartphone maker in the world.

Lyrics site Genius has accused Google of displaying its lyrics in search information panels thereby leading to drop in site traffic. Genius uses a unique apostrophe formatting embedded in its lyrics and says that it has evidence that Google is directly lifting lyrics from the site. Google, however, said that lyrics in search information panels are supplied by licensing partners and that it will review existing agreements to ensure good practices were upheld.

The Samsung NC10-14GB netbook that was sold at an auction for a staggering US$1,345,000 is a 2008 model that runs Windows XP SP3 and comes loaded with 6 pieces of malware that have caused damages of over US$95 billion, namely ILOVEYOU, MyDoom, SoBig, WannaCry, BlackEnergy, and DarkTequila.

We can now more easily compare the actuation forces, actuation points, and travel distances for each of the four types of mechanical switches designed by Razer. Gaming keyboards with Razer mechanical switches include the Huntsman and BlackWidow series.

All signs are pointing towards Dell releasing the XPS 15 7590 in the final week of June, specifically from June 24. Its Premium Customer support has reportedly been saying so as has XPS Vice President & General Manager Frank Azor. People in some countries are looking at a prolonged wait, though.

The Nova 5 is a new quasi-high-end smartphone destined for launch on June 21, 2019. Despite this, its leaks seem to keep coming. The latest is a device with a model number and specs that may match the upcoming device on Geekbench.

The NVIDIA SHIELD TV box may be among the best-known of all Android TV boxes. Now, there is evidence that it is finally seeing a refresh. However, it seems that the only difference between it and the existing model is a slightly updated SoC and the ability to run Android 9.0 out of the box.

Xiaomi has announced that its software division will stop releasing global betas of its OS, MIUI, on July 1, 2019. This applies not merely to older and slower devices, but to all phones of its brand. However, the OEM has also stated that this decision will not affect the frequency of security-related updates.

Most SKUs of the Huawei P30 Pro flagship have 8GB of RAM. However, it appears that the OEM is about to release a further variant of this phone with an additional 4GB. Then again, this new, ultra-high-end device may be a Chinese-market exclusive.

A New Zealand startup has launched the BoringPhone on Kickstarter. As described, the phone is designed to be the anti-smartphone with the look of a smartphone, but without all the distracting apps that can just end up wasting precious time.

The escalating trade war between China and the United States has claimed a further victim as Nintendo allegedly begins production of new products in Southeast Asia. The Trump administration has hinted at extending new tariffs to Chinese-made smartphones, consoles and computers. However, this hasn't stopped Nintendo ensuring that two new models are ready for launch.

AMD could be launching 7nm Raven Ridge APUs sometime in Q4 2019, according to Wccftech quoting an insider source. Not much is known about the new parts, but it is assumed that 7nm Ryzen APUs will bring improvements in IPC and boost clocks along with increased graphics prowess for the integrated Vega GPU.

Apple could have refreshed or redesigned MacBooks inbound for later this year. Seven new model numbers have been registered with the Eurasian Economic Commission with hopes that at least one of them could be a redesigned MacBook Pro led by the new Pro Workflow Team.

The XPS 15 7590 is nearly upon us and Dell has confirmed even more details ahead of its arrival. The upcoming laptop will be the first XPS 15 to feature an OLED display, which Dell has confirmed it shares with the Alienware m15. A touchscreen variant may be on the way too.

The new ThinkPad T495 has finally arrived. It is Lenovo's first full-fledged AMD laptop within the popular ThinkPad T-series. Our test sample is equipped with the AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 3500U, which is beaten by the Core i5-8265U in the ThinkPad T490.

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Project Scarlett seem destined to be fierce competitors by the end of next year, and it appears to be rather tricky to divine which next-generation console is most likely to have the edge. We have compiled a comparison table populated by confirmed and rumored details about each console, just in time to report about new speculated launch prices that will make gamers giddy if they come true.

The implementation of mobile AMD processor is getting better and better, and Intel will definitely notice the stronger competition. The new Ryzen 5 3500U in the ThinkPad E495 consumes a bit less and is much faster than a comparable Core i5-8265U in the ThinkPad E490. Update: Power consumption corrected

References to AMD X590 chipset were spotted in the BIOS code of a Gigabyte motherboard by a user on the Computerbase.de forums. This follows the tease of X590 by known Ryzen enthusiast Yuri Bubly on Twitter. Not much is known about the X590 platform but speculation is that it could feature even more number of PCIe Gen4 lanes than what X570 offers.

"Shot on OnePlus" is an initiative by which users can upload their shots via a smartphone app or online. This is done via an API, which, when analyzed, was found to be a ready source of user emails and IDs. The company's response to this situation currently includes an overhaul of this interface.

Asus has introduced refreshes of the Vivobook 14 and Vivobook 15 in the Indian market. Both the Vivobooks feature Intel Whiskey Lake processors and offer NVIDIA GeForce MX230/MX250 GPU options as well. A backlit keyboard and a Windows Hello-compliant fingerprint reader are also in the offing for a reasonable entry price.

The POCO Launcher, originally designed for the Pocophone F1, has gained popularity due to its advanced customization options. Now, its makers at Xiaomi have released a 2nd version, which can be downloaded and tried out now. It mainly improves on the app drawer and dark theme of this interface.

The Huawei Mate X has reportedly appeared as a retail item on a Chinese retail site. This is highly suspicious, however, particularly as the OEM has announced that this foldable phone's launch will now be delayed. In addition, the price included on the order page in question is out of line with previous projections.

Innodisk's Fire Shield SSD(TM) has reportedly been developed to withstand extreme temperatures. It is apparently based on black-box technology in order to maintain 100% accuracy and integrity for the data on its NAND storage. So far, this new type of drive is available in a 3.5-inch SATA SSD form-factor.

For smoother scrolling and fast motions, IPS is still the one to beat. IPS panels are getting better and better every year especially in terms of refresh rates where OLED is still limited to 60 Hz. Jumping from 60 Hz to 144 Hz or 240 Hz is a tangible upgrade even for untrained eyes.

The mysterious Intel Core i5-8265UC processor has reared its head again, and this time it has done so in some style. The chip has been spotted on numerous benchmarks and has performed well in all of them, outpacing both AMD’s Ryzen 5 2500U and Ryzen 5 3500U in some cases. Intel’s processor offers four cores and eight threads for CPU performance.

It appears GPD has gone into marketing overdrive in preparation for its crowdfunding campaign for the GPD P2 Max pocket-sized laptop. The Chinese manufacturer is now calling the P2 Max the “world’s smallest Ultrabook” and is comparing it favorably with some of the industry’s major players. The company has also announced there will be a third variant that will come with a 1 TB SSD.

Brydge is a company that makes premium external keyboards for tablets from OEMs such as Microsoft and Apple. Most recently, it has released the 'Pro', a Bluetooth accessory for the 2018 iPad of the same name. It is made of aluminium and has variants for the 11- and 12.9-inch SKUs of its corresponding device.

Xiaomi has confirmed that nine of its recent smartphones will be getting the MIUI 11 update based on Android Q in Q4 2019 with two others, the Redmi Note 7 and Redmi Note 7 Pro, slated to get the update by Q1 2020. The present availability is with regards to the Chinese ROM and information about global variants is not yet clear.

Several leaks have hinted at the release of the Huawei MediaPad M6 and new Samsung Galaxy Tab-line devices in the recent past. Now, new certifications appear to lend yet more weight to these rumors. One of these listings makes overt references to the probable 2019 MediaPad, whereas another contains new, yet partially familiar, Samsung model numbers.

A new certification from the Moscow-based Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) requested by the OEM Sony has come to light. It is for a "mobile phone" with the model number J9210. As it matches that of the Xperia 1 closely, it may refer to the rumored Xperia 2. On the other hand, it could also simply be a new variant of the 1.

Samsung has allegedly secured a trademark for a new product called the "Portable SSD T7 Plus". Should this leak prove true, it appears that a successor for the T5 is on its way. This putative product may at least maintain a trend towards max speeds of 540 MB/s, 256-bit AES encryption and a USB 3.1 Gen2 interface in a form weighing just 0.11 pounds.

Semiconductors are commonly used in energy transfer for electronics and other related fields. The current state of the art are applications of gallium nitride or silicon carbide rather than conventional markets. The potential improvements and advancements to be gained from this transition could drive their market's worth to as much as US$3 billion by 2025.

Xiaomi has issued a recall of its Mi Electric Scooter (or M365) product. This request to return items does not apply to all units of the personal transport accessory, however, but to a subset of the same sold in certain countries. These devices have a hardware fault that could affect their function and the safety of their users.

Pixel 4 leak season is truly upon us. It has been less than 48 hours since Google took to Twitter to reveal the Pixel 4, and now pictures of something that looks like a real-life version of its next flagship have appeared online. Coincidence? We think not.

Huawei is still developing EMUI 10, despite rumours about it developing an AOSP-based fork for its future smartphones. Better still, early beta versions are being compiled with Google Play Services, indicating that it may not be all doom and gloom for the Chinese company yet. An early beta is now available to download for the P30 Pro too.

Sony and Microsoft are both working with AMD to provide 7 nm graphics for their next-gen consoles, but the results of which may not be equal. According to multiple reports and perhaps even AMD itself, the next PlayStation and Xbox will be a generation of graphics performance apart.

XDA dev Max Weinbach spotted the Galaxy Note 10 Pro 5G model powered by the 7 nm Exynos 9825 SoC in Samsung's internal benchmark listings. Not much is known about the upcoming Exynos 9825 chip, except for the fact that it is built on the 7 nm EUV node that will also be used for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 865 SoC and Nvidia's Ampere GPUs.

The Strawberry4Pi 2 is an IoT HAT designed for the Raspberry Pi with a difference. The HAT costs just US$29 but comes pre-installed with its own OS and a mobile app that can control your internet connected devices. No coding required. The Strawberry4Pi 2 is available to order on Kickstarter and will ship in August.

Huawei has announced that it is pushing back the launch of its vaunted foldable Mate X smartphone. Where it looked like it might beat the Samsung Galaxy Fold to market, its launch has been pushed back until at least September.