Will Android and Chrome OS finally just merge already? What’s going on with Android Wear, and will Huawei jump ship to Tizen? Can Blackberry survive by giving up on in-house hardware? This week we’re joined by Trisha Hershberger to discuss these stories and answer your questions, so make sure you’re charged and ready for the Pocketnow Weekly!
Watch the live video broadcast from 2:00pm Eastern on September 30th (click here for your local time), or check out the high-quality audio version right here.
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September 30, 2016
Juan Bagnell
Guest
Trisha Hershberger (@ThatGrlTrish)
Jules Wang
Will Chrome and Android finally merge already?
(00:06:33)
Android-Chrome merger may be previewed at Pixel event
Will a Pixel 3 laptop run Andromeda OS? How about a Nexus 7P tablet?
News
15:47 | Android Wear 2.0 delayed until 2017.
18:09 | Will Huawei’s next watch run Tizen?
29:39 | Samsung replaces replacement Note 7.
38:00 | Could this possibly be the Galaxy S8? Really?
44:41 | We’re already talking iPhone 8 rumors…
49:29 | Apple might send your iMessage contact numbers to police.
54:08 | Sprint’s “Free iPhone” deal could return a profit.
57:26 | Rogers bundling Projector MotoMod with every Moto Z pre-order.
59:38 | Lenovo lays off most of its remaining Motorola employees.
Blackberry says goodbye to hardware?
(01:03:15)
No more in-house phone development, as more images of the DTEK60 leak, but CEO John Chen says there will be QWERTY phones in the future.
On September 26 the Microsoft Surface Ergonomic Keyboard was listed at the website of the Bluetooth certification body, popping up just before October, when solely based on previous Microsoft events, it is believed that Microsoft will host a Windows 10 device event/Microsoft event for 2016 too.
When it comes to subduing leaks, Microsoft is the best tablet computer manufacturer in the industry, but sometimes you can get lucky. When it comes to leaks with substance, there are only two leaks from Microsoft so far on unannounced products.
These are the Microsoft Surface Ergonomic Keyboard and a mysterious Microsoft model number 1804 Wi-Fi part, both of which first leaked via FCC during August and September.
In the FCC documents, a Microsoft Bluetooth Keyboard with model number 1786 appeared weeks ago. The status of it then was as an engineering sample, operating at a frequenzy of 2.4 GHz. But it wasn’t until it was named Surface Ergonomic Keyboard by the Bluetooth body that things became interesting, since this could indicate that the keyboard for the Surface AIO was getting ready for launch.
The next leak from FCC was the Wi-Fi radio part, with a Microsoft model number 1804, with dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz support for 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi.
FCC keyboard leak
Nothing to get too excited about in itself, but upon close inspection, it is manufactured by Sporton International, the same company that just manufactured the new Fire HD 8 tablet for Amazon.
There have been no other leaks on other coming Microsoft products yet, but there are some rumors. In January, Paul Thurrott said that a Surface 4 was in testing.
Then in May, sources said that a upgraded Surface Book with improved processor performance would be launched in Q3 2016. This is the last day of Q3 so we know that at least the timing was off. The same sources said that a fully new Surface Book 2 would not be launched before April 2017.
The last piece of rumor came at the end of June, when it was rumored that a Microsoft Surface AIO (All In One) computer would launch in 2016.
So naturally the leaked Surface Ergonomic Keyboard now lends a bit of credibility to the Surface AIO rumor. And then finally a few days later, a software developer who passed through the halls of the Microsoft Surface building in Redmond posted some pictures he took of small posters with 2-in-1 tablet computer silhouettes on, with the number variations 2016 and 2017 written on them, along with the words “Coming Soon”.
Microsoft have yet to announce an October event to the press, but as far as timing goes, there have been a high level of Surface sales over the last weeks, which can be taken as an indication of Microsoft clearing out certain models. If not all, then at least certain processor models, where some models of the Surface Book are now out of stock, like the 1TB model, while other Surface Book models have been cut by $150 to $250.
The Surface Pro 4 meanwhile have been reduced by over $200, now starting at under $689.
We will update as soon as we know more about any October event from Microsoft, and what we might expect then.
Microsoft Bluetooth Keyboard leaks, FCC
Microsoft model number 1804
Surface Ergonomic Keyboard leaks from Bluetooth body
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HP has announced a new set of EliteBook laptops with an adjustable privacy screen. The new technology, dubbed Sure View, will be available on both the EliteBook 840 and 1040 and can be turned on or off with the press of a button. By default, the laptop enjoys fairly wide viewing angles typical of most systems these days. Hit the button and the angle drops substantially, making the screen effectively invisible to those on either side and difficult to see even for those sitting behind you.
The new technology, developed with 3M, is different from aftermarket overlays and filters that have been available for years. These solutions are all easy to lose, detatch from the screen, or introduce distortions of their own since they aren’t bonded to the glass as part of the laptop’s display. HP is promising that Sure View won’t have these problems, though the company admits to some loss of brightness and color when the feature is enabled. Users can still adjust the brightness level after enabling Sure View, though this may make the panel more visible again.
Right now, Sure View only works with screens based on TN (twisted nematic) panels. TN screens tend to be brighter than other laptop displays, but color accuracy isn’t their strong suit. Then again, if you’re buying a laptop for this feature you’re probably less concerned with proper color and more concerned about leaking confidential information. Early feedback on the panels has been positive from those who’ve seen them, but the new laptops won’t be available on store shelves until September (touch models) and October (non-touch screens). It’ll take careful testing to determine if the displays still function in a variety of ambient lighting situations, or to tell if the Sure View technology changes glare or impacts battery life.
It’ll be interesting to see how Sure View sells and whether or not the technology can live up to its promise. Other methods for maintaining device privacy have ranged from the comical (draping various bits of cloth around the device) to removing the polarizing filter on the display. This last method transforms the panel into a blank white sheet to anyone not wearing polarized glasses — an interesting technique, if not a particularly practical one. Consumers haven’t historically been very motivated by security, though some business people and professionals will presumably be interested in the Sure View option. Now, if we could only prevent the myriad other ways data leaks out of systems other than by the primary display — well, it’d be nice.
Solar system upon solar system whizzes past in the opening few seconds of No Man's Sky. It's another reminder that the universe within Hello Games' newest title is as vast, empty, and possibly as bizarre, as the one we inhabit during our time here at Earth. A procedurally generated universe of 18 quintillion (18 x 1018) planets, that is 18 billion-billion Earth-sized planets, all with their own mysteries and a past to discover.
Owing to that sheer scale and the developers' primary wish for players to have a largely solitary experience, everyone begins in a random corner of the universe. Our journey began on Ouchvo-Mibhar Apusha, a lush neon-green planet with a temperate climate (28.8 °C) at mid-day. No Man's Sky is full of all kinds of planets - dead, toxic or just plain inhospitable - but Apusha is the best kind you can hope for as a starting point. Sure it has a nonsensical name, but the game lets you change that if you're the first to discover it. And in its almost infinite universe, that will largely be the case.
Your first task in No Man's Sky is to get your starship in order by repairing two of its crucial parts - the ones that help it take-off and travel beyond the stratosphere. To do this, you will need a bunch of resources and modules, which can be crafted using more of those resources. These can be unearthed from little rocks of different shapes, or giant ones that take minutes to crumble using your multi-tool, which is equal parts a miner's friend, and a weapon. While you engage in this tedious process, your life support system will gradually wear off - it can be brought back to full strength by way of, you guessed it, more resources.
This method of refuelling, to say, extends to most parts of the game - be it your exosuit, starship or the multi-tool. Each of them has items that lose their capability the more they are used, such as the craft's launch module, the tool's laser mine and the aforementioned life support system built into your exosuit. As you spend hours traversing between planets gathering what you need, you will constantly need to juggle all of these variables to ensure you don't get stranded at the worst possible moment. Yes, most of the resources you need are abundant and easily available, but it does affect how you approach the game.
(Also see: No Man's Sky Has a Few Glitches, Predictably)
Not only are you forced to prioritise mining the environment over worry-free gallivanting, the limited inventory space of both your exosuit and starship - at least in the early hours - can be equally frustrating. Not knowing which of the dozen or so resources will be important at a given time leads to more problems. Should you sell or keep the platinum, platinum, gold, iron, heridium, or the thanium9? Or should you drop one of the tradable commodities that would fetch a considerable price at the galactic market for more resources?
For all its exploratory promise, No Man's Sky can often feel like Minecraft in space - as you go about collecting resources upon resources to craft items upon items, all to trade more of this stuff with non-playable characters (NPCs) for things you need to build something else entirely, like a hyperdrive after you fix the ship. It's hard to look at this as a virtuous cycle too. After years of being shown videos showcasing carefree interstellar journeys with innumerous destinations and endless variety, the reality is anything but.
Our first planet - Apusha - is part of a solar system that has a total of two planets and a moon. On the surface, the three present completely different environments: one rather hospitable, as we mentioned, the other planet terribly toxic, and the third a dead moon with no sign of life, the game informed us upon landing. But once you begin to take in the terrain along with any outposts you come across, it's all quite the same. They've all got the same kind of beacons that can be connected to the galactic Pokedex of sorts, and you will mostly find crates of resources lying in the vicinity. While the flora and fauna might look different owing to their procedural generation nature, the ones that contain the resources you need don't change: red shards of crystals are sources of plutonium, blue plants net you platinum and heridium comes from giant rectangular blocks that give off a faint blue glow.
There are other downsides to your hack-and-slash type of gathering too. This comes in the form of Sentinels, which the developers have described as a universe-wide peacekeeping force of sorts. The game isn't forthcoming on how and why they are present on every single planet and moon, but their presence represents the only threat in mining a place dry. Within the first five minutes of getting resources for ship repair, bee-like Sentinels had been alerted to our activity and swarmed over us. Their purpose feels shoe-horned in to give off a modicum of actual gameplay to what would have otherwise been a rinse-and-repeat tale of gather-build-trade.
(Also see: No Man's Sky Could 'Fundamentally Change' on PS4 Neo, Says Sean Murray)
But jarring movement that is tolerable during traversal makes combat downright annoying. It doesn't help that the PC port of No Man's Sky, launched Friday night, isn't exactly impressive. Even with settings on high/ultra, the game's textures feel all too muddled with not enough detail to them. The default settings cap the framerate at a mediocre 30fps, and even when we increased it to 90fps we didn't notice any change. Thankfully, in the few hours since launch, the community has figured out that you're much better off turning off V-sync and changing the framerate to "Max". With that, we managed to nick out an average of 55fps with setting maxed out, and around 80fps with GeForce Experience optimal settings on an Intel Core i7 3rd gen, Nvidia GTX 760 2GB and 8GB RAM with a 1200p screen.
As for the controls, PC fares better unlike the PlayStation 4 which has attracted complaints for putting sprint on the right analogue stick. You can remap all the controls as you like, though the default ones should serve you fine if you've played a first-person shooter before. But the game's menu screens - foremost thought with controllers in mind - don't work well with the mouse. Instead of letting you choose with one-click and make navigation faster, you have to hold down on every command until a circle fills up. Attempting to organise your inventory with drag-and-drop fails as well.
While some of the technical issues can definitely be ironed out, the PC version of the game is tough to recommend on first look. And though we now know what to do in No Man's Sky, the prospect of diving back into its universe, albeit a different solar system, for the singular purpose of resource-gathering doesn't sound very inviting.
Here's hoping the next few hours aren't more of the same.
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We’re only one or two months away from the introduction of the 2017 Galaxy A lineup, but the 2016 A8 edition has literally just rolled out in Samsung’s homeland… with the general specifications of a 2015 flagship phone.
Pretty confusing stuff, though certainly not unusual for a company that seems to cope with scandal and drama by stress-releasing mid-ranger after mid-ranger. Of course, the Samsung Galaxy A8 (2016) is not just any mid-end Android soldier, taking design cues from its predecessor and the C family while borrowing Galaxy S6 or Note 5’s internals.
Under the 5.7-incher’s hood, you’ll find a powerful octa-core Exynos 7420 processor, paired with a respectable 3GB RAM, up from 2 on the 2015 A8, and backed by a large 3,300 mAh battery that even tops the 3,000 capacity of Note 5’s cell.
The Galaxy A8 (2016) probably trumps last year’s hero devices in the photography department as well, matching their 16MP rear cam prowess, but upping the selfie ante to 8 megapixels. Then again, the “Always On” display is hardly a standout this time around, capping off at Full HD resolution, and compared to the original A8, the second-gen feels a tad bulky, at 182 grams and a 7.2mm profile.
Obviously running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out the box, the new all-metal beast also supports Samsung Pay with a home button-baked fingerprint scanner, and reportedly costs north of $500 in Korea, which sure isn’t pretty. Let’s hope it doesn’t tend to blow up.
Photo editing pushes laptop capabilities right to the very edge. Top-quality work demands a high-resolution, color-accurate display, and a fast processor. But the rigors of traveling with photo gear plus a computer make small, lightweight machines with long battery lives a real plus. Similarly, storing thousands of high-resolutions calls for a large hard drive, while peak performance is only possible with an SSD. When we last looked at the best options in the market last year, there were some clear leaders. We’ve updated our list, with new and improved models have have come on the market over the last year.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of the best laptops for photo editing, but if you are in the market, one of these is likely to suit your needs.
Don’t fret if we missed your photo editing favorite
It was hard to pick out just a few machines from the dozens of excellent laptop models out there. For many, apparently small features like backlit keyboards, multiple USB 3.0 ports, choice of DisplayPort, HDMI, or VGA output, or battery life can easily change which model is right for your particular needs. This is especially true with Windows ultrabooks — with literally dozens of very similar models crowding the sub-four-pound SSD-powered Windows laptop space. Unfortunately, laptop makers seem to be making it increasingly difficult to compare the actual specifications for their units. Manufacturers often completely neglect to state maximum RAM capacity, base CPU speed (they seem to like bragging about the higher Turbo Boost speed instead), or drive RPMs. Hopefully, though, the models we’ve described can serve as a baseline for your shopping so you’ll know what’s available and what some of your alternatives are.
If you have a very-high-end photography workflow, that involves a lot of multi-layer Photoshop images, and are okay with lugging around something larger, also take a look at our best laptops for engineers guide for ideas.
If you have a different laptop you love for your photo editing work, let us know about it in the comments.
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By now, SSDs have become commonplace in laptops, and we wouldn’t advise building even a budget desktop without one. However, external drives are a different story. Speed isn’t as important as capacity when it comes to backing up and storing all your accumulated data, so the concept of an external SSD is a harder sell. Still, as prices come down, there is a growing market for them.
We’ve already tested two such models from Samsung and SanDisk, which we found to be incredibly useful but not exactly practical for all situations. Adata is a lesser known name when it comes to storage products, but it’s one of Taiwan’s most prolific flash memory vendors, and it has just decided to get into the external SSD game as well.
We’ve previously reviewed two similar products, the Samsung SSD T1 and SanDisk Extreme 500, both of which were good, but for different reasons. The new SE730 (250GB) looks like it could be handy, but does it have what it takes to beat such competition in this very narrow niche? Let’s find out.
Adata SE730 look and feel
The Adata SE730 is actually somewhat smaller than the Samsung T1. It’s about the same length and thickness, but a lot narrower. It looks like a slightly oversized pocket lighter, or maybe a small tin of mints. We received a gold review unit, and it’s also available in a rich red. The metal exterior has a speckled matte finish, and isn’t gaudy at all. We would have liked a more sober option, but most people will be fine with this and even show it off.
Slight depressions on the front and back make the SE730 very easy to hold, and it only weighs 33g. The device is rated IP68 for water and dust resistance as well as MIL-STD-810G 516.6 for shock resistance. It should survive being immersed up to 1.5m deep in water for up to 60 minutes. Surprisingly, there’s no mention whatsoever of these certifications on the product’s packaging – they’re huge advantages for a small device that’s going to be carried around a lot, in our opinion.
That rating is achieved thanks to a rubber-lined cap on one end. It’s easy to pop off and move out of the way. Beneath it, you’ll find a USB Type-C port, which makes perfect sense today. You get only a short Type-A to Type-C cable in the package, so you’ll still need an adapter to use it with today’s slimmest laptops and smartphones (or your own cable with Type-C on both ends, which is more expensive).
Adata SE730 specifications and performance.
Another interesting thing that Adata mentions in passing on its website but doesn’t quite highlight on the SE730’s box is the fact that it supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 speed, which is 10Gbps as opposed to the 5Gbps that most drives labelled USB 3.0 and even USB 3.1 actually run at. This could be extremely useful for those who move large files around. One thing that’s missing though is hardware-level encryption, which both the Samsung SSD T1 and SanDisk Extreme 500 offer.
Files can be encrypted using Adata’s HDDtoGO utility, which is offered as a free download from its website. This also gives you a basic file sync tool and portable Web browsers and email clients for you to use any PC without leaving obvious traces.
Adata also says that it has used high-quality industrial grade MLC flash, resulting in peak read and write speeds of 550MBps and 450MBps respectively – we’ll see how far that holds true in our tests. Note that our test platform’s Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH motherboard does support USB 3.1 Gen 2 thanks to its Intel Thunderbolt controller, but only through its own Type-C ports. We were therefore constrained to USB 3.1 Gen 1 speed (5Gbps). The configuration is as follows:
Intel Core i7-6700K CPU
Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD5-TH motherboard
2x8 GB Kingston HyperX DDR4-2666 RAM
256GB Samsung SSD 950 Pro
Cooler Master Hyper 212X cooler
Corsair RM650 power supply
Asus PB287Q 4K monitor
Windows 10
We used both SiSoft SANDRA 2016 and CrystalDiskMark 5.0.3 to test the SE730’s read and write speeds. SANDRA measured sequential read and write speeds of 388.22Mbps and 387.73Mbps respectively, which is a strong showing. The Samsung SSD T1 scored almost exactly the same in terms of reads, but was much slower for writes, which gives Adata the advantage. Random read and write speeds are much more indicative of day-to-day usage, and we measured 301.71Mbps and 394.31Mbps respectively, which was a little weaker than the Samsung SSD T1’s read speed but much stronger than its write speed, and stronger overall than the SanDisk Extreme 500.
CrystalDiskMark gave us pretty much the same results as SANDRA did, but also tests read and write speeds using protocols designed specifically for SSDs. Specifically, when using a queue depth of 32 instead of 1, which tests the SSD controller’s ability to organise and prioritise read and write accesses intelligently, we saw that random read speeds jumped from 20.81Mbps to 129.8Mbps, and random write speeds rose from 40.75Mbps to 151.6Mbps. That was slightly behind the Samsung SSD T1, but ahead of the SanDisk Extreme 500 again.
Verdict
Portable SSDs bridge the gap between cheap, simple USB pen drives and bulky external hard drives. That isn’t a huge market segment to fill, but it’s hard to argue with the sheer speed and convenience of these devices once you’re used to using them. Storage capacity is relatively limited and the cost is high, but just like with laptops, a lot of people will find that this is a reasonable and even desirable tradeoff. Eventually, prices will fall and SSDs will be very commonplace.
Adata’s offering is one of a very small number of options, and it seems to offer the best of what Samsung and SanDisk showed us with their two differing products. The SE730 is rugged like the SanDisk Extreme 500 but also fast like the Samsung SSD T1. Its printed MRP is significantly lower than both those two, though you can now find them all at equivalent street prices online or at local markets. The SE730’s only flaw is that it doesn’t offer hardware encryption, which both the others do, but if that isn’t important to you, this is a solid all-rounder.
I admit, I’m a bit of a fan of Google’s new messaging platform, Allo. I also admit, that I’m not really sure why. After all, it is the fourth messaging platform introduced by Google, and it has some limitations to it – most notably that it cannot be the default SMS handler for Android. But for a 1.0 product, Allo is a pretty strong choice for a messaging platform, and I have tried to incorporate it into my daily life as much as possible.
Google’s new messaging platform is built upon the idea that people need to communicate and that communication encompasses a lot of details that can be enhanced by the Google experience. Photos, locations, reviews all help people connect, not just virtually, but in person as well. Which is why, when some-time contributors Hayato Huseman and Ryan St. Andrie and I hit the road with New York in our sights, Allo seemed like a natural fit to coordinate our weekend plans.
Everybody in
I honestly wish the idea to switch to Allo had been mine, but alas, I am not that smart. But soon after the group conversation started, it became pretty evident that Allo was a nice solution. At first, we all just stayed in touch with ETAs and general chit chat. Even Adam Lein was able to stay in touch from his Lumia 1020. So overall, Allo turned out to be a great fit.
It needs to be said, that group communication is entirely possible via other means, and in terms of just a series of text messages, Allo brings little to the table. But as events get closer and plans start to form, Allo really did rise up to meet our demands. Google Assistant is pretty great when it comes to making plans. Everything from sharing a quick photo, to looking up/sharing an address, to letting folks know where you are – Allo can help coordinate all of that. Just a few examples.
How may I assist?
New York, as you may or may not be aware – is a fairly large place, and easy to wander in. There is a plethora of places to visit, eat, etc. So when you’re trying to coordinate with a group where you want to eat, you can suggest a place and Google Assistant will chime in and let everyone know where it is. We found ourselves at Chelsea Piers looking out over the water near sunset – gorgeous – and we were trying to coordinate with a late comer. Blam, shared location. Want to troll Hayato Huseman with a Blink 182 video? Blam, video provided.
Later, when deciding where to grab a bite, Google Assistant helped us get directions to the excellent Jeckyl and Hyde Restaurant on Christopher Street (seriously, go there. Great place). Naturally, tapping on those locations allowed you to bring up a map of the area, and get directions. It also was a quick and easy way to let folks know where you were in relation to that place.
Throughout the night, photos were shared back and forth along with general giddiness as happens when a certain quantity of Japanese beer is consumed. Allo’s voice message capability while driving was also quite helpful – though that happened before the aforementioned beer. Overall, Allo really stepped up to the plate to meet our needs. That being said, there are a few caveats that need mentioning.
Geeks R Us
First, this was a meetup of tech people – we all pretty much already had Allo installed – except Adam Lein, because Windows. So there was very little barrier to entry in that respect. Allo being such a new product, I think all or most of us were probably looking for a reason to use it in the first place. Who knows, this may not be the only site with an editorial written about this weekend on it. Allo certainly fit the bill for this audience. Your mileage will vary, naturally.
Plus, there were some things that Allo can’t do. Video calling for one (but we have Duo for that, of course). Then, there’s the single-device limitation which is quite the fail on Allo. Sure, most people won’t have more than one phone, but the lack of tablet/desktop app had to have been more than a little irksome to those who were at home in New York watching things come together and having to respond by phone.
But these aren’t really deal breakers, so much as they’re indicators that this is a 1.0 product. We put this app through its paces all weekend and Allo was almost always up to the task, which was really great to see. Google has a really solid foundation here and it just needs to flesh things out here or there and it can be a true iMessage rival.
The Android 6.0 update is coming to the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab A 7.0 (SM-T280) that was launched in the US earlier this year. The rollout of the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update actually started with the Samsung Galaxy Tab A NOOK 7.0, Barnes & Noble’s version of the tablet, even though the NOOK has the exact same hardware as Samsung’s regular versions of the tablet.
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 7.0 (SM-T280) was released with Android 5.1 Lollipop, but the hardware has no problem of supporting OS upgrades, so the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update was expected, also because this was a new tablet launched in 2016.
Barnes & Noble have a support page that shows how to look for software updates on a NOOK-skinned Samsung tablet, though the updates should arrive automatically, unless any files have become corrupted by bad apps along the way.
Samsung have slowly started to update its support pages for the Samsung Galaxy Tab A 7.0 too, where both the model numbers SM-T280NZWAXAR and SM-T280NZKAXAR are now listed with new Android 6.0 Marshmallow user manuals alongside the older Android 5.1 Lollipop user manuals.
SM-T280NZWAXAR and SM-T280NZKAXAR before Android 6.0 update (with French theme/wallpaper)
The same model numbers are assigned to both the NOOK versions as well as the regular versions, since the NOOK tablets are only NOOK versions because of the additional apps fitted to them.
But apart from that, they are the same models as the SM-T280NZKAXAR and SM-T280NZWAXAR models found in stores. So the Android 6.0 update is finally rolling out now between Q3 and Q4 2016 to all models of Samsung Galaxy Tab A 7.0.
There are only three other 7-inch tablets with Android 6.0 Marshmallow on the market these days, with these being the low resolution Lenovo Tab3 7, the over 3 years old Google Nexus 7 FHD, and the coming Acer Iconia One 7 (B1-780).
Ever since Intel launched the Core i7 back in 2008, it has pursued a fairly consistent core allocation and marketing system. Intel’s top-end mainstream parts are quad-cores with Hyper-Threading enabled, both on the desktop and the laptop. It’s been that way for nearly a decade, but if a leaked roadmap is accurate, that’s about to change.
According to the roadmap, spotted by Overclock3D, Intel will introduce a new six-core processor as a top-end option in mobile when it refreshes its Cannon Lake 10nm chips with the second-generation Coffee Lake processors in 2018.
The implication of this slide is that we won’t see Cannon Lake until about this time next year. Intel’s first generation 10nm process would continue to hold down the Y- and U-class product divisions, while Coffee Lake debuts in the 15-28W segment. It’s just the top-end chips that’ll get a six-core option, with TDPs from 35W-45W. There’s another slide from Overclock3D that claims to show things in a bit more detail.
While we don’t have any details on the desktop side of things, Intel tends to keep its core counts fairly aligned between desktops and laptops. As we’ve discussed in our guide to Intel CPUs, desktop microprocessors have consistently followed the same pattern: Core i7 means quad-core + Hyper-Threading, Core i5’s are quad-core chips without HT, and Core i3 processors are dual-core with Hyper-Threading enabled. In mobile, the highest-end quad-cores also offer Hyper-Threading, but the lower-power Core i7 processors are all dual-core with HT enabled. Intel now offers a few Core i5’s without HT in mobile as well, but that’s a relatively recent development, and these are still 45W chips.
What these slides imply is that Intel believes it can finally squeeze another two cores into its top-end 45W TDP bracket. These chips would target desktop replacements and mobile workstations, not conventional systems. And in all honesty, that’s probably where they should stay.
The harsh truth is CPU performance simply isn’t improving very much or very quickly. DirectX 12 has proven to be a significant boost for AMD’s GPUs and CPUs in certain cases, but it hasn’t yet done much for Intel CPUs. The promise of DX12 is that it allows a CPU to take advantage of multi-threaded rendering much more efficiently — but if you stop and think about it, Intel CPUs have been the gold standard for conventional DirectX 11 workloads for a long time now. That means developers design scenes and games to be executed efficiently within the constraints DX11 put on Intel processors — and that, in turn, can limit the boost Intel chips see when using DirectX 12.
Long term we expect to see better support for multi-threaded rendering and higher CPU core counts as developers begin using DirectX 12 more, but that may be a relatively slow transition. Major engines like Unreal will continue to support multiple APIs for some time into the future — DirectX 9’s feature set is still relevant to gaming today, and that API is nearly old enough to drive. Meanwhile, many consumer applications still top out, practically speaking, at just four threads.
Some will see this roadmap as confirmation that Intel is reacting to AMD’s Zen, but we frankly doubt it. Zen is not expected to match Intel clock-for-clock and while we expect its power efficiency to be vastly better than anything AMD fielded with Bristol Ridge or Carrizo, it’s still going to take multiple product cycles to bring overall APU performance up to compete with Intel. While AMD intends to launch Zen APUs, it’s focusing on servers and the desktop market first — areas where it has much larger TDP ranges and can leverage core counts more effectively. Of course all of this is rumor at this point — take it all with a grain or ten of salt.
Just days away from Google’s upcoming event, juicy tidbits from the rumour mill have resurrected news from last year that Android and Chrome OS are merging. And like The Wall Street Journal’s prediction, project ‘Andromeda’ will be ready for primetime by Q3 2017, with a preview shown this year, presumably on October 4. In fact, reports of Android and Chrome OS merging can be traced all the way back to 2009, with co-founder Sergey Brin suggesting the two operating systems will “converge over time”. On October 4 if Google announces the seemingly inevitable, it will mean two things:
1. The world will finally get a worthy competitor to challenge the Windows/ Mac OS duopoly.
2. It will be an admission of the failure of Chrome OS.
Chrome OS started as an ambitious project, which assumed that one doesn’t need anything more than a Web browser on a computer. It was designed to provide seamless updates, built-in prevention from viruses, and extreme ease-of-use.
Today, five years after trying to chase the dream of a browser-only computer, doing everything on the Web is no longer as scary as it was when the first Chromebooks came out, thanks to ubiquitous, fast Internet, and mature Web-based services. So it is somewhat ironic that Chrome OS, piece-by-piece, showed signs of defeat in these past five years, suggesting that we possibly can’t ever have cloud-only computers.
It all started with introduction of a file manager and an offline music player right after Chrome OS’s commercial release in 2011. A desktop, window manager, and conventional taskbar were added a year later. The complicated “Cloud Printing” system is also apparently being remedied by an experimental feature that enables traditional USB printing. Google also started winding down the concept of Chrome apps on platforms other than Chrome OS.
But the big blow to the Chrome OS ideology came during Google I/O in 2014, when Chrome OS was shown running some Android apps for the first time. In this year’s Google I/O, this feature was cemented with the ability to install any Android app on selected Chromebooks, thanks to a different approach.
It has been suggested that the Andromeda project is more about bringing Chrome OS features to Android, rather than the other way around. Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP of Android and Chrome OS blogged about how “there’s no plan to phase out Chrome OS”. But that leads us to ask, why the need for two computer operating systems? And what will be the difference between the two anyway?
One could argue that Chrome OS computers can continue to be the inexpensive, easy-to-maintain devices that are constantly said to have high adoption in schools in the US - a 2015 report suggests half of them are Chromebooks - though that’s a small piece of the total PC market. And since none of the expensive Chromebooks (like Google’s Chromebook Pixel) ever hit commercial success, it might be a good idea to create distinction between these two segments - with Andromeda taking on high-end computing that’s currently dominated by Windows and Macintosh computers.
But if you ask us, the writing's on the wall for Chrome OS. Had Google not tried to force-feed its vision of the web-browser-only world onto us for the last five years, the PC industry would have been a three-horse race instead of Chrome OS amounting to just 0.35 percent of all computers in this world.
You may say ‘better late than never’, but Q3 2017 is a painfully long wait for this rumoured Andromeda device, as Apple with every passing year makes their iOS/ mac OS integration even tighter. With the search giant sending out the message strong and clear that its Pixel phones are going to be #MadeByGoogle, and the hire of Rick Osterloh to head its hardware division, we may finally see the day when Google can provide similar consistency with their computing products as Apple does. We sincerely hope so: the PC industry is in desperate need of a shakeup.
Consumer-side mesh networking solutions have been popping up more often recently. Perhaps the idea of spreading stronger, singular networks has met its time and price, right?
But what about a solution that takes things off the grid when the situation strikes, be it in a foreign country or in a humanitarian crisis?
Well, GoTenna, the makers of a namesake product that enabled peer-to-peer wireless communications without Wi-Fi or cell signals, have come up with a solution called GoTenna Mesh and it’s on Kickstarter today.
It does what the goTenna did, but has the possibility of going much farther as it hops on other goTenna Mesh “nodes” to deliver communications. The mesh connections are anonymous and don’t pick up data from each node it passes by. While each node individually has a slightly weaker range than the original goTenna had (3 miles maximum vs 4 miles), meshing can effectively triple that range.
Users pair their smartphone to the node via Bluetooth 4.2 and download a companion Android/iOS app. Private peer-to-peer or group conversations can be held as well as public announcements within the network. You can share text messages under SMS parameters as well as share GPS locations on offline maps. The device is weather-proof.
Just in case you’re wondering, the GoTenna and GoTenna Mesh are not interoperable. The former sends signals through the 150MHz band while goTenna Mesh works at the 900MHz band in the US and various others elsewhere, though all of them are open access.
As of this post, it has garnered more than $66,000 of its $150,000 goal. A pair of GoTenna Mesh devices go for $149 on the site — more than 700 units are still available at the early bird price of $129. Any amount of money donated above the tier pricing will be donated to Telecom Without Borders to connect emergency and humanitarian workers in Syria, Haiti, Nepal and other needed areas. Most perks are expected to ship in December.
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The new tablet Lenovo TAB3 8 Plus (TB-8703) have leaked again via FCC, ahead of any official unveiling by Lenovo. The Lenovo TAB3 8 Plus (TB-8703) is an 8-inch Full HD Android 6.0 tablet with optional 4G LTE data and voice support.
This tablet from Lenovo first leaked in June this year, after it had been approved by Chinese cellular regulatory agency TEENA.
Lenovo have yet to actually announce this tablet, though Lenovo have released the HD version Lenovo TAB3 8 already, so it may be a case of this tablet simply appearing on the market one day.
Lenovo TAB3 8 Plus has an 8-inch screen with a Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1200, is powered by a 2 GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, has 2GB or 3GB of RAM, 16GB or 32GB of storage, and a 3.8V 16.2Wh/4250 mAh battery taking up most of the space inside.
Lenovo TAB3 8 Plus with plastic cover on
The thickness of the tablet is 8.7 mm, with a weight of 334 grams. It has a front camera and a rear camera with LED flash, Dolby Atmos speakers, and dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi support.
Lenovo TAB3 8 Plus model names for North America are TB-8703F for the Wi-Fi tablet model, and TB-8703X for the Wi-Fi + 4G LTE (Voice) tablet model.
Lenovo TAB3 8 Plus (TB-8703) is partially manufactured at one of the Motorola plants, and passed the FCC approval on September 6th, so the approval is quite new. Hopefully it won’t cost much more than the Nvidia Shield Tablet K1 when it launches.
Lenovo TAB3 8 Plus TB-8703 with microSD card slot and SIM card slot open
Lenovo TAB3 8 Plus (TB-8703)
Screencap from Lenovo TAB3 8 Plus (TB-8703) user manual
Last year, when we went hands on with the G2 version of HP’s flagship mobile engineering workstation, the ZBook 17, we found its power and display were incredibly impressive. Nonetheless, its large-size, high-price, and short battery life made it an unlikely purchase for anyone for whom the power and extensibility weren’t vital.
HP has now upgraded the machine all-around to the new G3 version. After spending some time with the G3 ($2,150 and up), we found the improvements are indeed significant. It’s still not for the faint of heart, but the new version is lighter, cooler, smaller, has a longer-life battery, and yet is also more powerful. In addition, HP has also reconfigured its ZBook product line, adding what will likely be a popular new model, the ZBook Studio.
It used to be that to do serious engineering work, you needed a monster desktop souped up with a massive graphics card. That is changing rapidly. Last year, when we reviewed the G2, you could get all the compute power that your desktop had a few years prior in a laptop that weighs under 10 pounds. Now, with the G3, you can get even more power in a unit that weighs in at less than 7 pounds.
HP’s G3 ZBooks — on the left — are noticeably smaller and lighter than the previous G2 versions
Desktop performance that you can take on the road
While there are a few users that purchase a 17-inch ZBook simply because they need the large screen — or amazing color of HP’s DreamColor displays — most buyers are in it for the performance. On that score, the ZBook 17 delivers. You can get a system with up to 64GB of ECC memory, over 4TB of storage, and Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 for expansion — all powered by a 6th generation Core i7 or Xeon processor.
Photo manipulation in Photoshop and Lightroom is even better than on the G2. It was as fast and smooth as on my last-gen GPU-assisted quad-core i7 desktop. My review unit was packed with the high-end Nvidia Quadro M5000M 8GB mobile GPU.
The review unit ZBook 17 G3 I’ve been evaluating is also the first laptop that feels powerful enough to do some solid machine learning projects. Its Quadro GPU is 30x faster than a 4GHz i7 at training networks, and the roomy 64GB of system memory, and 8GB on the GPU itself, allow fairly-large datasets — even those including images — to be accessed quickly. The ZBook score 2229 on Fire Strike Ultra — definitely respectable compare to the 5200 score of my high-end 1080 GPU.
Windows 10 and UHD finally arrive for engineers
One of the last market segments to be dragged into the ultra-high-resolution display, Windows-10 era has been engineering laptops. Only recently have many of the major scientific and engineering applications been certified on Windows 10, and it also wasn’t until recently that mobile GPUs had the power to run graphics-intensive applications at UHD resolution. Finally, with the G3, ZBook users won’t have to compromise on either of these. You can get a new ZBook with Windows 10, and optionally with a UHD display. Some models are even available with an optional touch screen (although only at 1080p resolution).
You can get dreamy color, but beware the battery life
Like with the G2, the unit I reviewed had a really bright and gorgeous-looking DreamColor LCD. Its gamut is larger than Adobe RGB, and it can be set either to one of several default colorspaces, or matched to a custom colorspace — which is apparently quite popular among HP’s Hollywood customers. New for the G3 and 2016, the DreamColor display is 3840 x 2160 — conveniently quadruple 1080p for easy application scaling. The DreamColor is an option, which is probably a good thing, since it still forces the unit to rely on the discrete GPU at all times. That cuts battery life quite a bit.
Fortunately for engineers everywhere, the ZBook G3 models all benefit from dramatic battery life increases over the G2 versions. HP claims an overall 42% increase in battery life for the ZBook 15 G3 and 72% for the ZBook 17 G3 — around 16 hours using HP’s battery benchmark, although of course users are unlikely to see anything close to that in practice.
HP upgrades its Z Turbo SSD performance
With G2, HP introduced PCIe SSDs, as part of a technology it called Z Turbo. The G3 pushes the SSD performance envelope further, with NVMe PCIe SSDs. It claims around double the throughput for the new interface — as much as 2 GB/s sequential read performance.
MacBook Pro users will be quick to point out that its newest models also feature PCIe-connected system SSDs, but we’ll have to wait for the expected MBP refresh this fall to see if Apple does something similar to HP’s NVMe-based interface.
As part of its commitment to ensuring your ZBook will perform its best, HP bundles its Performance Advisor software with the units. It also features an excellent Support Assistant, that manages needed updates from Microsoft and HP, and messages from HP. As a Dell XPS owner, I’ve always been unhappy with how the Dell Update tools work. By comparison, HP’s ZBook management and update tools are excellent — easy to understand, comprehensive, and effective at finding and installing updates.
Don’t be fooled by the base price
The base price for a dual-core ZBook 17 G3 is starts at just over $2,000. For that, though, you get a pretty minimalist configuration. You can spend another several thousand dollars if you want a top-of-the-line version with DreamColor display, larger SSD, more RAM, or a beefy Nvidia GPU. The review unit I tested prices out at an eye-watering $7,100 — including 64GB of RAM, DreamColor display, 2 512GB SSDs, a Xeon E3-1575M CPU, and Nvidia Quadro M5000M GPU with 8GB of memory.
Personally, being cheap, I often buy laptops with the minimal specs and then upgrade them myself — except for processor and GPU. However, part of the appeal of the ZBook like is HP’s extensive support and ISV certification offerings, so it seems unlikely too many of their customers go that route. HP does make it simple to add more storage and memory, though, with a simple-to-open, tool-free back cover that reveals two drive bays and the second two memory slots (the first two populated are located under the keyboard). This will be especially useful for those who want to swap drives on a shared computer, or have different projects on different drives.
The ZBook 17 also features HP’s dock connector which, combined with the unit’s own extensibility and computing power, means that if you can live with the price, you won’t have to make many compromises with this machine as your primary computer. The ZBook 17’s built-in keyboard is massive and full-featured, and includes a TrackPoint-like stick, touchpad, and numeric keypad. Even fickle typists are unlikely to find they need to add an external keyboard.
I went into this review focused mainly on the ZBook 17, but have become even more intrigued by the new ZBook Studio that features a 15.6-inch display and quad-core CPU. It seems to offer the kind of high-end performance many professionals need, but at an amazingly light 4.4 pounds — similar to a MacBook Pro 15 or the Dell XPS 15, but with more impressive raw performance specs.
An increasing number of engineers I talk to are using mobile workstations as their primary machines, even at the office. Part of that is due to the growth in tools being run on the network or in the cloud, part is because of the growth in mobile usage scenarios, and part is because mobile workstations (and high-end laptops) have gotten good enough that they can deliver performance even under a demanding engineering workload.
Now read: The best laptops for engineers and engineering students: when work requires a real workstation
Laptops come in all shapes and sizes these days, and no matter your budget, there are always going to be loads of options to choose from. We're here to guide you through the buying process so you can narrow down your selection and choose the best one for your needs.
Please note that this is not a buying guide that lists the best picks. This is more of a tool to help you figure out what is important and what is secondary, so that you will face less difficulty when you're looking at different models. This article only lays out the general guidelines that everyone should keep in mind when looking at laptops, and is not meant as a definitive list of specifications or models.
Price
First of all, you need to know how much you're willing to spend. You can easily splash out well over a lakh if you want to go high-end, but the good news is that the starting price is just Rs. 10,000 to 15,000 now. Models such as those available from RDP, iBall, and Micromax all offer very basic hardware, but that's still fine if all you're doing is surfing the Web, sending emails and typing reports for school or work. These laptops even include Windows 10, so they're much more versatile than Android tablets.
(Also see: RDP ThinBook Review)
Going further up the price scale, you'll get laptops with more powerful processors, more and faster storage, better graphics capabilities, better screens, and more stylish bodies. Most mainstream laptops cost Rs. 25,000 and above. You'll also get hybrid 2-in-1s with touchscreens, which can be used as tablets.
(Also see: Notion Ink Able 10 Review)
You'll start seeing luxuries at around the Rs. 45,000 mark. Laptops above this price level are generally outfitted to last longer and be more versatile. You can have better screens, slicker bodies, and more of everything that makes a laptop faster. If you need a machine that can handle modern 3D games or run extremely demanding professional software, you should ideally budget at least Rs. 60,000. Those that cost above Rs. 1,00,000 are generally either extremely powerful gaming laptops, or super-slim style statements.
(Also see: HP Spectre 13 Review)
Specifications
You should get the most powerful CPU your budget allows. Intel pretty much owns the laptop space, though there are a few low-end AMD offerings. Nearly all budget-friendly options will use Atom, Celeron and Pentium CPUs, which are fine for basic usage involving Web browsing and working with Office documents. If you have the money to spend, go for at least a Core i3, or preferably a Core i5 or i7, which will help with multitasking and heavy apps, especially if you need to work with heavier software or do things like edit photos and videos.
(Also see: Dell Inspiron 15 7559 Review)
More RAM means less waiting for things to happen. 2GB is the bare minimum but you should prefer 4GB or 8GB whenever possible. A solid-state drive will have a huge impact on how quickly your laptop switches on and loads programs. The cheapest laptops will have either mechanical hard drives or tiny 32GB SSDs which you'll need to supplement with an external drive or some kind of cloud storage account. A 128GB or 256GB SSD is the ideal balance of speed and price.
Keep in mind that most laptops are difficult or impossible to upgrade, so make sure you have enough storage and RAM for not just your current needs, but for anything that might come up over the next 3-4 years.
(Also see: Lenovo Y700-15ISK Review)
Other features
Once you've got your preferred hardware specifications locked down, look for features like a backlit keyboard, USB Type-C ports, touchscreens, and metal construction to help you decide between models. Consider whether you'll use your new purchase only as a laptop or also as a touchscreen tablet, and therefore whether it's worth getting those features in a lower-performing device. This is also where you should consider battery life claims, warranty support, and how easy it is to locate a service centre where you live.
The most expensive laptops are either super powerful or super sleek. If you want to play games, you're looking at spending anywhere from Rs. 60,000 to Rs. 4,00,000. That will get you the latest graphics processors as well as powerful hardware, but most of these laptops will be large and heavy. On the other hand, the thinnest ones also cost a lot and are usually aimed at those who want to make a fashion statement more than anything else.
(Also see: Lenovo Yoga 900 Review)
There are several types of hybrid 2-in-1s. The least expensive ones are basically tablets with attachable keyboards. Some of these are difficult to use on the go and you compromise on comfort. These are good for watching movies and surfing the Web, but not so much for work. You also get 2-in-1s with screens which detach from a solid base or swivel around to sit flat. These can be used in various positions and are more versatile.
When it comes to size and weight, choose based on whether your laptop will spend most of its time on a desk, or whether you're carrying it to school or work every day. If it's the latter, stick with models under 1.5kg in weight. Smaller laptops are usually lighter, but anything with a 12-inch or smaller screen will likely be too cramped for comfortable long-term use.
(Also see: HP EliteBook Folio G1 Review)
You'll find a lot of brands to choose from, and we always suggest that you look beyond specifications and try different laptops in person to see which is the most comfortable for you. Check for a keyboard that's easy to type on - sometimes the keys are too cramped or too mushy. If you type a lot, check for dedicated keys rather than shortcuts which require multiple presses. Trackpads are also sometimes wobbly, inaccurate, or rough. Hinges need to be solid and also withstand a lot of repeated abuse. Make sure you have all the ports you need - the thinnest laptops tend to sacrifice them, so you'll need to carry adapters everywhere.
(Also see: Asus ZenBook UX303UB Review)
And that's all you need to arm yourself with before you set out to go shopping! Do share your laptop buying experiences with us via the comments section below.
Another Galaxy Note 7 has exploded. But this isn’t just any Galaxy Note 7. Unlike the older, recalled units, this one is an exchanged, new unit.
It was sold to one Hui Renjie by Chinese e-retailer JD.com. He bought the device this past Sunday and had it delivered that same day. He plugged it in for an overnight charge, then woke up on Monday to a Note 7 smothered in black smoke before it exploded.
Hui told Bloomberg that a Samsung representative visited his house and asked for the phone. He declined and decided to expose the issue to the public as he does not trust the company to properly handle his claim.
CNNMoney obtained a video and pictures of the blackened device with Hui’s MacBook tainted with soot and some unidentifiable yellow substance. The IMEI as labeled on the box was checked to be clean and not affected by the recall.
“We are currently contacting the customer and will conduct a thorough examination of the device in question once we receive it,” Samsung stated.
Four Note 7 explosions have been reported in China with Samsung questioning the validity of two claims. In one case, the company blamed an external heat source for causing the explosion.
One of our kind readers have just nicely tipped us that the new 10.1-inch Windows 10 2-in-1 tablet Asus Transformer Book T101HA have become available for pre-order for $299:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K1JW9BSW10K/
The Asus Transformer Book T101HA release date is set to within October, which has been in line with the expectations the last two weeks. So this tablet appears to be on track for launch now.
Asus Transformer Book T101HA replaces the Asus Transformer Book T100HA that was released in October 2015, so this marks the first time that this legendary tablet has changed its model number to 101, after having matured well ever since the first generation model was introduced in 2013, and that every other tablet brand copied after that.
Asus Transformer Book T101HA now available for pre-order
Asus Transformer Book T101HA is a Windows 10 tablet with included detachable keyboard, featuring a 10.1-inch screen that has a HD resolution of 1280 x 800. It is powered by a quad-core 1.44 GHz – 1.92 GHz Intel Atom “Cherry Trail” x5-Z8350 processor, has 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM, and 64GB of storage with microSD card expansion support up to 128GB.
Highlights also includes 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi support, Bluetooth 4.1, and long battery life at 11 hours.
Asus T101HA is equipped with 1.5 Watt stereo speakers, a 2MP front camera, 1x full-size USB port and 1x micro-USB port, as well as a micro-HDMI port and a 3.5 mm audio combo jack.
The weight of the tablet is 580 grams, while the thickness is 9 mm. The keyboard has a 1.5 mm keyboard travel with 62 gram force, palm rejection, and Windows gesture support.
And being a new Windows 10 tablet, it has support for Windows 10 features like Cortana, so you can work hands free with it too. As a proper 2-in-1, it can be set up in tent mode, which is useful both around the house or when you are traveling, as this feature eliminates the need for an additional tablet stand or cover.
Google’s new messaging platform is built upon the idea that people need to communicate and that communication encompasses a lot of details that can be enhanced by the Google experience. Photos, locations, reviews all help people connect, not just virtually, but in person as well. Which is why, when some-time contributors Hayato Huseman and Ryan St. Andrie and I hit the road with New York in our sights, Allo seemed like a natural fit to coordinate our weekend plans.
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