Notebooks, Tablets, Smartphones, Wearables And Gadgets
In-depth product reviews and news of notebooks, tablets, smartphones, wearable technologies and gadgets. We're now living in a contextually-aware computing world and mobile devices can not only help us enjoy the ride but create and capture new experiences as well.
An important distinction in the eternal iPhone versus Android debate is that the iPhone is a specific brand of phone with its own operating system, iOS, while Android is only an operating system that runs on a wide variety of different phone brands and models. That said, Google, the driving force behind Android, does make its own phones and...
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Back in January at CES 2022, AMD rolled out its Rembrandt processors, now more properly known as the Ryzen 6000 mobile family. AMD made some bold claims about these CPUs, including that they'd surpass its previous generation with up to a 30% performance lift, despite employing fundamentally the same CPU core architecture. AMD's Ryzen 6000...
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ASUS figured out several years ago that it could cater to mobile gamers by packing fast, optimized hardware with intelligent features into its gaming phones, and then surround them with an ecosystem of complementary software and peripherals. Thus the ROG Phone was born. Now in its fifth iteration (ASUS ultimately skipped an ROG Phone 4 SKU),...
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Machine learning is everywhere. It's an integral part of our smartphones and smart home appliances, running customer service chat bots for big retailers, and hard at work recognizing people and actions in security systems, among numerous other applications. Neural networks are the backbone of the robotics and...
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In just two years, OnePlus has managed to launch four pairs of TWS (true wireless) earbuds: the excellent OnePlus Buds ($79), the affordable OnePlus Buds Z ($49), the higher end OnePlus Buds Pro ($149) with ANC (active noise canceling) and wireless charging, and the mid-range OnePlus Buds Z2 ($99) with ANC. Now, OnePlus is capitalizing on...
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AMD had a wildly eventful keynote at CES 2022, jam-packed with announcements. During the festivities, CEO Dr. Lisa Su, Frank Azor, Jason Banta, and Laura Smith jointly revealed a wide array of products, including the Radeon RX 6500 XT, Ryzen 6000 series mobile processors, and refreshed Radeon RX 6000S series mobile...
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When we reviewed the DJI Mavic 3 last year, we came away impressed, and rightfully so, because it was a great product. The new DJI Mini 3 Pro we'll be showing you here today, however, has essentially redefined expectations for a sub-250g drone. Nothing was left untouched in the Mini 3 Pro and virtually every...
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Qualcomm is updating its mobile platforms with a couple of enhanced SoCs, including the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 for flagship Android phones, and the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 for premium handsets that fall just a step below. As it happens, we had the opportunity to preview the performance of the former and spoiler alert, it's...
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AMD officially lifted the veil on its latest Ryzen 6000 series mobile processors back at CES early this year. In case you missed it, we detailed that initial announcement, talked about the high level features, and broke down the H and U-series SKU stack in our coverage at the time. More recently, we had the chance to evaluate the excellent...
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When NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 Ti mobile GPU and Intel’s beefy 12th Gen Core H-Series processors first hit the scene, they tore through the lab here guns a-blazin’. We had the chance to take a look at a couple of killer systems from MSI and Alienware at the time, which maxed-out the platform with...
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For better or for worse, OnePlus is changing. In the past year, the company has merged with Oppo, transitioned OxygenOS to Oppo’s ColorOS code base, and replaced Warp Charge with Oppo’s SuperVOOC. But here in the US, OnePlus also grew almost 3x thanks in no small part to its affordable Nord N series...
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Hey musicians and DJs, do you ever feel like your mixer is just a bit too bulky? Do you ever feel like you need to lay down that mix as soon as inspiration strikes, but you're not in the studio? Well, Teenage Engineering has an admittedly pricey but beautiful, petite and elegant solution for you.
The new...
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Two years ago, we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ and gave it our recommendation without reservation. As we noted in that review, the premium Android tablet space is pretty sparse. There are a number of dirt cheap tablets running old versions of Android out there, but you’re unlikely to find high build...
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Samsung made a splash recently as one of the first laptop manufacturers with a Spring refresh powered by Intel's new Alder Lake-P 12th Gen Core processors for mainstream thin and light laptops. Targeted at a class of machines Intel calls the "Performance Thin And Light" category, these 12th Gen Core chips drop into a 28 Watt power envelope,...
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By most accounts, Intel's 12th Gen Core processors based on the hybrid Alder Lake mobile architecture have been a smashing success for gaming laptops. From class-leading desktop performance to outstanding mobile prowess, the blue team's Alder Lake family has shown strong gains in workloads of all kinds. The first notebooks we looked at,...
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A lot has changed at OnePlus over the past year. The company has merged with Oppo, and OnePlus’ OxygenOS now shares a common codebase with Oppo’s ColorOS. Warp Charge is now called SuperVOOC, which is Oppo’s fast charging brand. OnePlus also set sales records in 2021, shipping 11 million phones...
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For the past several years, we’ve been hearing about Intel’s extensive plan to enter the discrete GPU space. It’s the main reason why Raja Koduri joined the chipmaker in late 2017, who came on board to spearhead not just a one-off product launch, but a new era of graphics at Intel with a robust roadmap extending years...
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Acer's Swift 3 line is comprised of an array of thin and light notebooks that are designed to meet the tech and budget needs of most mainstream users. There are several models within the Acer Swift lineup, with a variety of features and processors to choose from, along with display sizes offered in 13.3-inch, 13.5-inch, 14-inch, 15.6-inch,...
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Last week, Oppo launched its latest Android flagship – the Find X5 Pro (€1,299 / ~$1400) – and we just spent a few days using the phone in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress 2022. Before we share our first impressions, let’s provide some context. Oppo’s Find X series has always...
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The trend of OLED displays in laptops is typically reserved for flagship devices that cost a pretty penny. Logically, the extreme contrast ratio, total lack of ghosting, and colors that pop are the sort of thing that most PC shoppers lust after in a premium product. OLED TVs also flank the high end of that...
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Over the years, Chinese phone manufacturer RedMagic has managed to build a reputation for making affordable, feature-packed gaming phones and selling them in the US. The company typically releases new models in the spring using Qualcomm’s latest flagship processor, then launches similar, but updated versions in...
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Another year, another triplet of Samsung Galaxy S flagships. Last week, Samsung launched the Galaxy S22 ($799), S22+ ($999), and S22 Ultra ($1,199), three premium phones with high-end specs that are targeted at dominating the Android landscape in the US, and battling the Android competition abroad. Needless to say...
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