Storage

PCIe4 drives are finally falling to more affordable price levels even for the higher-end models. The 1 TB XPG Gammix S70 Blade offers read rates of over 7000 MB/s to be faster than a 1 TB Samsung PM9A1.

A new leak asserts that Motorola will update the Moto G series of smartphones with an affordable new variant soon. Should this rumor prove accurate, it may indicate what the OEM will offer for just over US$200 in 2022. This price might get you a 90Hz display, a 5,000mAh battery, a new 4G/LTE MediaTek processor - and even a microSD card slot.

Nubia's high-octane Android phone brand RedMagic has just unleashed its latest 7 and 7 Pro flagships on the world. The 7 Pro in particular is rated for a number of industry-leading upgrades, a world-first under-display camera (UDC) panel in a gaming phone included. However, with its 165Hz screen, the 7 does not lag that far behind.

Realme has officially augmented its 9 series of smartphones with a new kind of top-end variant, the 9 Pro Plus. Despite this name, the 9 Pro has the larger display and battery, not to mention the higher refresh rate, of the two. However, its new sibling may make up for that with the only AMOLED panel of the pair - not to mention a newer and potentially improved main camera.

Nokia has made the rumored successor to the budget G20 official, and has ushered a new G11 in alongside it. The new smartphones are equipped with large batteries for markedly long run-times - which may be handy as the 2 new phones offer a series-first 90Hz refresh rate. The two new phones have been released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland today (February 14, 2022).

The freshly-launched Galaxy Tab S8 series has proven so popular that two-thirds of its variants have "sold out" on Samsung.com in the US. Well, not exactly: the OEM has announced that it is "pausing" their pre-order event while it deals with the demand for the tablets, which of course includes their new, top-end 14.6-inch SKU.

A new device, purportedly from Xiaomi, has appeared on Geekbench. Its combination of a novel model number and well-worn specs have led to rumors that it is a new addition to the POCO M4 series, albeit without 5G connectivity. Accordingly, it might be a pre-existing Xiaomi device rebranded to fit this description.

Those who are still using a SATA drive for various reasons can grab the 1 TB SK Hynix Gold S31 SSD for 17 percent off. After the discount, the regular price of US$94.99 goes down to US$79.04, which is very good for one of the best-rated SATA SSDs currently available for purchase.

With its fingerprint reader and fast sequential read and write speeds of up to 1,050 MB/s, the external Samsung T7 Touch SSD with USB-C is perfect for 1TB of sensitive data which needs to be encrypted in order to prevent unauthorized access.

Huawei has now delivered on its global launch for its latest flagship smartphone, the P50 Pro, along with its foldable counterpart the P50 Pocket, with pre-orders in a number of countries worldwide. They have been released as frankly questionable contenders in terms of price, albeit with free gifts in some markets.

The European Union Court of Justice (or CJEU) has implemented a new law by which data pertaining to users in its jurisdiction has to stay there. Meta has taken issue with this, indicating that the measures are incompatible with the way it deploys Facebook and Instagram within the bloc. Therefore, the EU just might become more of a Meta-free zone soon.

The WD drives are cheaper than many other PCIe4 x4 NVMe SSDs albeit at the cost of generally slower transfer rates. Performance will be in between the fastest PCIe3 drives and the fastest PCIe4 drives.

The reliable leaker Roland Quandt has come across renders for what is claimed as the Nokia G21, and, thus, one of the HMD Global brand's 2022 crop of smartphones. Should this be the case, it seems the new device is dropping the signature G-series ring-cam in favor of a much more conventional hump, and that's not even the extent of the putative changes with this potential budget phone.

The price of Corsair's ultra-fast MP600 Pro LPX SSD with 4TB of capacity is higher than the MSRP of an entire PlayStation 5 gaming console.

The high-end ADATA Blade NVMe SSD and its super-thin heat spreader can fit just about anywhere including inside of thin laptops and the Playstation 5, but don't expect it to sustain maximum transfer rates for long periods unless if you plan on installing an even larger heat spreader.

One of the most affordable NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs is currently discounted on Amazon, which makes the WD Black SN750 SE a perfect deal for PS5 owners and storage-hungry laptop users with an empty M.2 slot.

XDO Tech's Pantera Pico PC has become a crowdfunding darling due to its relatively tiny size and budget price. Now, the start-up has contacted its fans to assure them that it is in production, and has made some progress despite the upcoming Chinese New Year break at its factory. Meanwhile, the OEM has come down to the last few units it will sell at early bird prices.

The quick NVMe SSD SK hynix Gold P31 is currently discounted on Amazon and could be worth consideration for owners of an older desktop PC or laptop with an M.2 slot that only supports PCIe 3.0.

With a low price of just US$0.072 per gigabyte, Amazon’s current deal on the SanDisk SSD Plus is the perfect opportunity to significantly upgrade the storage capacity of your desktop PC or older laptop with a 2.5-inch bay.

Samsung's spacious and ultra-fast 980 Pro SSD is once again heavily discounted and presents storage-hungry laptop and PlayStation 5 owners with the perfect opportunity to upgrade, especially with a free heatsink which is included as a free gift.

The large 2TB variant of the popular WD Black SN850 SSD is not only compatible with Sony's PlayStation 5 gaming console, but can also serve as a very quick and capable primary drive in most modern laptops and desktop PCs.

Canon has launched a new variant of the EOS R5 flagship camera designed to address the original's well-publicized limitations. Accordingly, the new C version looks and acts much like its immediate predecessor - except with extra added vents for its new active cooling solution. It is also much more expensive to start off with this time around.

Microsoft has announced that its latest flagship 2-in-1, the Surface Pro 8, is now available for Indian customers to pre-order. It has been joined in this new market by its 7+ counterpart, which also has Tiger Lake silicon but lacks a 120Hz refresh rate. However, the models of either available to non-business customers are limited.

The 9 and 9 Pro are iQOO's latest flagship smartphones. They add the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the latest E5 AMOLED display tech and a world-first outing of the 50MP ISOCELL GN5 sensor to their line's hallmark 120W charging and BMW-themed finish. Then again, this generation has left the brand's historical reputation for flagship-killing prices behind.

Scheduled to hit the market later this year alongside the existing Gold P31 and Gold S31 series, the Platinum P41 will be the first Gen 4.0 SSD with a 176-NAND layer by SK hynix. Designed to fulfill the needs of gamers and content creators, it will be available in 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB versions.

The 15-inch IdeaPad 3 is often regarded as one of the best-priced laptops in its category. Now, its 17.3-inch version (or 3i) has appeared on the Lenovo US website at just over US$100 off its regular price. This gets the buyer 11th-gen Core i5 silicon, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

Samsung is said to have a top-end flagship smartphone variant in the works that is so premium it will absorb the Galaxy Note line's S Pen integration. Now, the S22 Ultra is also now said to gain a new internal storage SKU to rival that of the iPhone 13 Pro series. Meanwhile, the phone's dummy unit has turned up in new hands-on images.

PCIe4 x4 M.2 drives are finally becoming more affordable after a whole first year of limited availability and options. The Samsung 980 Pro is one of the faster PCIe4 options out there which makes the new sale price that much attractive.

Twitch has strict community guidelines, and they seem to work better than the legislation of many countries in the world. The official Spanish-language Amazon Prime Video channel was suspended from Twitch (which is owned by Amazon) on Sunday, shortly after a presenter accidentally revealed her breast during a live show.

Garmin plans to start its 2022 with a bang, according to a new leak. The OEM allegedly has no less than 7 new smartwatches to show off at the upcoming CES event in Las Vegas, to become the latest additions to 4 product lines. They range from potentially entry-level new Instincts to a possible next-gen Venu flagship with a high-end display.

Introduced last week and with wide availability expected to follow during the first quarter of 2022, the ARES DDR5-4800 desktop memory solution by Lexar targets next-gen Alder Lake-powered systems and features on-die ECC, 1.1 V voltage, aluminum heat spreaders, and it comes covered with a Lifetime limited warranty.

According to a report by TrendForce, global DDR5 prices are set to finally start coming down over the next several months. The report states that both DDR5 and DDR4 modules will get 8-10 percent cheaper by Q1 2022.

AMD's next generation of EPYC processors, currently referred to as "Genoa", are tipped to support 12-channel memory. Now, it is also slated to support 1TB of DDR5 RAM via each of these channels, for a grand total of 12TB. Then again, it may be capable of doing so under certain server-grade conditions only.

The Realme GT2 Pro is touted to match up to the most powerful smartphones in the world with the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. Now, it is also said to challenge them in another way, by offering a SKU with the current top end of internal storage the industry can offer. It may be paired to 12GB of RAM in the upcoming flagship.

The rise of the smart home has also seen the rise of the potential number of remote controls needed for all its new devices - or for the need to deplete one's smartphone battery for the same purpose. Now, however, Omni's latest universal remote may solve some of the problems entailed with the Model P, a control that runs on "advanced" solar power.

TEAMGROUP announced two new industrial storage solutions, the N75A-M80 and N75G-M80, which are designed to operate in changing and volatile environments. The company claimed that these SSDs were developed to meet the increasing demands of the 5G and smart edge computing markets. These devices also feature amazing cooling performance and are suitable for small industrial spaces.

When it comes to storage solutions for NAS servers, capacity is often more important than performance, which is why Seagate has now unveiled its largest IronWolf Pro and Exos hard drives yet with a massive disk space of 20TB.

The Black Shark 4S Pro is officially the fastest Android smartphone of November 2021. However, its immediate successor might outrun it, as it will launch with Qualcomm's new top-end processor, the Snapdragon 888+. The Xiaomi brand's CEO has hinted that it will combine the SoC with other custom and premium specs to form a mobile gaming powerhouse in 2022.

The Galaxy A13 5G has often been touted as a kind of advance preview of Samsung's mid-range Android line-up for 2022. Now, it has finally been unleashed and will be available in the United States soon. It offers a 50MP main camera, a 90Hz display and a 3.5MM jack for under US$300.

Samsung has launched the Exynos Auto V7 SoC, a new processor specifically for cars, alongside the Exynos Auto T5123, which might ensure the same vehicles are connected. This is because it is the OEM's first 5G-capable modem made for the automotive industry. They have been joined in their debut by the S2VPS01, an extra-safe PMIC for cars.

The rumors of Asus launching a new, 16-inch version of its ROG Zephyrus Duo laptop have gained further momentum with new claims of Ryzen 6000 power for the alleged dual-screen gaming machine. The processor may partner with RTX 3000-series graphics to drive a heightened refresh rate in this apparently upcoming PC, now slated to run Windows 11 out of the box.

TEAMGROUP released blazing-fast DDR5 memory kits in two models, the T-FORCE DELTA RGB DDR5 and the T-FORCE VULCAN DDR5. The DELTA RGB reaches an unbelievable frequency performance of 6400 MHz while the VULCAN DDR5 has a maximum frequency of 5200 MHz. Both memory kits can be purchased by customers in 2x16 GB capacities.

The Moto G31 is one of Motorola's latest phones, and brings specs such as an OLED display and a 50MP main camera to the lower mid-range Android smartphone segment. Now, it is bringing this combination of specs to the Indian market. It will be available on Flipkart from December 2021.

Polymega is an innovative 'all-in-one retro console' that converts to support various types of classic cartridges via a modular system. Now, its maker Playmaji has announced that the fifth and latest version of these allows the user to play N64 games with the device. The OEM asserts that there are few other options on the market to do so at present.

Oukitel is probably best known for its smartphones with ingress-protection ratings such as IP68/69K, a reinforced-style casing and large batteries for prolonged screen-on time. These features also apply to its latest product, the RT1 - however, this one has the OEM's largest display to date, at 10 inches. Oukitel will launch it for outdoor-life fans later in November 2021.

The heavily discounted WD Black SN850 SSD with 1TB of capacity is not just suitable for upgrading the storage of most modern laptops, it can also be used as a storage expansion in Sony's PlayStation 5 console.

The price will drop another $5 USD from November 26 to 27 which is when the Thanksgiving sale will kick off. The SN750 SE series is home to some of the slowest PCIe4 NVMe SSDs that are still compatible with the PS5.

The bleeding edge of DRAM technology is now officially known as DDR5, rated for twice the data-transfer rates of its predecessor DDR4. However, its own next generation, DDR6, is now slated to launch with double these new speeds - or less than half those of DDR7 again. Both upcoming upgrades are said to be in the works at Samsung already.

Samsung is projected to unveil a new cost-effective Android tablet, possibly before the end of 2021. Now, a new leak unambiguously confirms the product name allegedly linked to this device for the first time. It also serves to suggest the tablet might come in SKUs with and without standalone connectivity.

Apple may have answered a multitude of MacBook Pro-user prayers by restoring the SD card slot to the latest versions of these PCs. However, a growing number of owners claim that the "new" port is running unusually slow compared to adapters or dongles. This issue has reportedly led to replacements for some affected consumers.