Gaming

Apple now sells the Microsoft Xbox Wireless Controller through its online store. The move is likely due to Apple's recent push into the gaming market. Considering the latest OS updates for all Apple devices (e.g., iOS 13, iPadOS, and macOS Catalina) include native support for the Xbox Wireless Controller and Sony's DualShock 4 controller, it makes sense for Apple to offer the controller directly to its user base.

The easy upgradeability of the Dell G3 15 3590 means you can buy the cheapest configuration available and then simply upgrade the storage and RAM yourself to save on costs.

Samsung has released an updated schedule of repair charges for a number of its newer phones. The recently-released Galaxy Fold is at the top of this list. It shows that an out-of-guarantee repair for its flexible screen costs US$599.

Shadowy Contracts is a stealth-based RPG in Steam Early Access. While the game ambitiously tries to mix elements from the Thief and Elder Scrolls series, there's still work to be done before the game could be considered complete.

Realme has revealed that the X2 Pro's display will come with a touch-sampling rate of 135 hertz (Hz). This means that the upcoming Snapdragon 855 Plus flagship may have enhanced user-input responses to go with its 90-hertz display refresh rate. Its camera prowess has also been teased on Weibo.

Xiaomi's latest gaming phone, the Black Shark 2 Pro, will be released for sale in Europe on October 9, 2019. It will be sold through the brand's regional website for an as-yet undisclosed price. The 2 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 855 Plus SoC and up to 12GB of RAM.

Sony has officially confirmed its next-gen console — it will be called the PlayStation 5 and is slated to launch in holiday 2020. Sony also opened up on a few aspects of the console including support for hardware-level ray tracing, a new UI, and the DualShock 5 controller.

TCL's 2019 8-series of TVs are based on QLED technology and integrate the Roku streaming platform. They are 4K HDR panels that support Dolby Vision and 100% of the DCI-P3 color space. The new TCL 8-series will become available through Best Buy in the US.

Rob Wyatt, the lead architect behind the Atari VCS console, officially resigned from the project on Friday, October 4th. Citing non-payment from Atari for six months, Wyatt's company Tin Giant, which was contracted to help design the console, has left the project. Additionally, sources familiar with the Atari VCS have claimed the console is little more than a generic Linux PC, which does not jive with Atari's marketing.

Announced earlier last month at IFA 2019, Razer will now be taking orders for its latest Blade Stealth refresh and it's going to cost you quite a bit. The Base Ice Lake SKU starts at $1500 USD while the GTX 1650 Max-Q version will be $1800 to $2000 if configured with a 4K UHD touchscreen.

DOOM Eternal has been delayed until March 20, 2020 in order to bring the game up to id Software's "standards of speed and polish." As an apology, id Software is including the upcoming DOOM 64 re-release as a pre-order bonus for DOOM Eternal at no extra cost. DOOM Eternal will also get a free DLC package shortly after launch that will let players enter another Doom Slayer's game as a playable demon.

Eve, the company behind the crowdfunded V tablet, has finalized the panel that will go into its crowd-developed gaming monitor, the Eve Spectrum. The Spectrum will use the same panel found in the LG UltraGear 27GL850-B IPS display, which is a 1 ms 144 Hz IPS panel. Eve will announce the final design of the Spectrum on October 18th.

The ASUS ROG G703GXR bucks the slim bezel trend and delivers a no-compromises gaming platform with plenty of ports and decent performance. We have put the 17.3-inch gaming laptop through its paces, which you can find in our accompanying review.

Turtle Beach has released the Atlas Edge, a new USB adapter for any conventional wired headset. It is intended to enhance any headset connected to it with an in-house panel of software called Control Studio. This suite is designed to convert audio through the Atlas Edge into a "full panoramic 3D audio experience".

In a recent article, we pointed out that we have yet to see a laptop with the Intel Core i9-9980HK outperform the MSI GE75 GS9, which runs the cheaper (and theoretically less powerful) Intel Core i9-9980H. A forum user by the name of littlezipp has posted evidence that the 9980HK in his Alienware m15 R2 thoroughly beats the 9980H in a 30-loop test of Cinebench R15. However, littlezipp nabbed this performance by way of a good undervolt and repasting his CPU with liquid metal.

Scheduled to arrive globally this week, the PlayStation 4 system update labeled 7.0 is expected to bring Remote Play to smartphones and tablets running Android 5.0 Lollipop or later, 16-player parties, chat transcription, enhanced audio, an improved backend that should take care of most connectivity issues, system-level HDR tuning, and more.

Intel has hinted that the first of its eagerly anticipated Xe discrete GPUs will launch in June 2020. The launch date has been discerned from a cryptic tweet posted by the head of the project and former AMD GPU chief Raja Koduri.

Nvidia’s successor to the Turing architecture powering its current line of Turing based RTX 20 series GPUs isn’t far away. According to the latest rumors, the graphics powerhouse will be releasing its new chips based on Samsung’s 7nm EUV process in the first half of 2020.

The MSI GL75 offers everything one would expect from a mid-range gaming laptop in 2019. Its high-refresh-rate display and excellent gaming performance are, unfortunately, marred by some annoying flaws. Loud fan noise spoils an otherwise adequate package.

There have been multiple reports of Pokemon GO handing out strikes preventing play to those who own certain Redmi devices. This pattern has been linked to MIUI 10.3.2.0, a recent firmware update for the phones affected. Niantic, the AR game's developer, has announced that it is now working on trying to revise them.

Google has announced that Red Dead Redemption 2 will come to its Stadia platform on it November 2019 launch. The wildly popular Rockstar game will thus be available for streaming via the new service from its very first day. At present, it is not clear if this title will allow saving across platforms.

Expected to be released in early November via BIOS updates from all mobo manufacturers, the new CPU microcode is said to bring needed fixes, stability improvements and even new features to all Ryzen 3000 processors, as well as to the older 1000 / 2000-series.

NVIDIA looks set to have a busy end of the month, at least if latest rumors are to be believed. Chinese insiders claim that the company will release the GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER in the final week of October, a week after it is expected to unleash the GeForce GTX 1650 Ti. The GTX 1660 SUPER will sit between the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti, with NVIDIA likely pitching it against AMD's upcoming Navi 12 and Navi 14 GPUs.

Preliminary reports position the upcoming Navi-14-based Radeon RX 5500 GPu as a direct competitor for Nvidia's GTX 1660 solutions. Even though the memory bus is not as wide compared to the Nvidia GPUs, the RX 5500 compensates with up to 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM plus higher core and memory clocks.

Atari and Antstream Arcade for an exclusive app that will deliver over 2,000 officially licensed retro video game titles to the forthcoming console. The Antstream Arcade app for the Atari VCS will also include 50 original Atari titles in original or enhanced versions.

If you're looking for a cheap gaming laptop from Lenovo and don't have excessively high requirements, you can have fun with games in Full HD for less than 800 Euros (~$872). However, minor weaknesses must also be accepted with the price.

After months of beta testing, Activision and Tencent Games' latest offering, Call of Duty: Mobile is now live and available worldwide. While not quite as feature-packed as its biggest competitor, PUBG Mobile, it does seem to be a more refined game.

The NVIDIA SHIELD TV is due an update soon. The most likely candidate to fit this bill has gone through registration with the FCC, and has also just secured Bluetooth SIG approval. Therefore, there may still be time for it to be released this year

The Nintendo Switch Lite may be new, but it appears that it too may suffer from the controller drift issue that has plagued some users of the original Switch design. Despite seemingly having a different controller mechanism, some users have reported seeing the in app camera moving despite the controllers remaining untouched.

Following the reveal of the release date of the much-awaited PS4 exclusive, the Last of Us 2, new information has surfaced about the game itself, and not all fans will be pleased.

11 bit studios has released an official story trailer for Frostpunk: Console Edition. The city survival game was originally released for Microsoft Windows in April 2018 and managed to rack up sales of over 1.4 million units. The gameplay involves torturous decisions and constant demands from the populace and environment that draws the player deep into the icy world.

It's becoming more difficult to justify carrying around a laptop with GeForce RTX 2080 graphics when you can simply harness that power from the cloud or an external GPU docking station. Alternatives like eGPUs and game streaming services will make conventional gaming laptops a hard sell in the near future.

A new concept video of the PlayStation 5 has been uploaded to YouTube that offers a potential glimpse at what the final product from Sony could resemble. The console, which bears the logos “PSV” and “PS5” on its case, looks starkly different from its predecessors, with the artist choosing to base the creation on the V-shaped device found in recently unearthed patent drawings.

Nvidia is boosting the value of its GeForce RTX series with new features designed specifically for online social gamers. By utilizing the Tensor cores of its RTX GPUs, a normal webcam will be able to detect, track, map, isolate, filter, and augment faces in real-time for streaming or video chatting.

Xbox consoles are steadily upgrading in order to use the more popular virtual assistant platforms. The latest of these is Google Assistant. Those who wish to connect the two can join a forum group for a new public beta update and follow the instructions found thereon.

Nintendo's latest title to hit the smartphone market exploded out of the gates yesterday. Mario Kart Tour launched on iOS yesterday and quickly hit the top spot in the App Store for 58 countries. However, the game's freemium pricing model has drawn the ire of critics and users alike, throwing the long term success of the kart racer into question.

Facebook has announced several updates for its Oculus Quest standalone headset that are likely to greatly broaden its appeal. The company has announced that it is introducing wired PC support for the headset as well as hand tracking that extends its capabilities significantly.

Remember AMD Dual Graphics, Acer FrostCore, or the Lenovo UltraBay? We look back at some of the failed features that major OEMs have tried pushing onto their gaming laptops.