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The typical thin and light sports either a 12- or 13-inch display, Intel’s Core i3 and i5 processors, 2GB to 4GB of RAM, and 120GB to 500GB of storage – via SSDs or HDDs. Dropping the optical drive for the sake of portability and using a low-voltage CPU alongside a long-lasting battery is also a popular trend in this category but not necessarily the norm. Samsung 9 Series The feature-rich and beautifully designed Samsung 9 Series features a 13....

Lenovo bills the IdeaPad 5i as a capable productivity machine as well thanks in part to the keyboard’s 1.5mm key travel and a spacious 120mm x 75mm touchpad. The screen’s 16:10 aspect ratio is also taller than most so you can see more of a document with less scrolling, and the 180-degree hinge allows for more flexibility in terms of vertical viewing angles. Other notable specifications include an Intel Core i3-1215U CPU, up to 8GB of system memory, up to a 512GB solid state drive and a 1080p webcam....

When I first received the Yoga Book, I assumed that the slim, folding design wouldn’t allow a large battery to fit inside. As it turns out, the combination of a low-power Intel Atom SoC and a battery of reasonable size delivers excellent battery life that should suffice for at least 10 hours of continuous use, if not more. I managed to get 12 hours out of the Yoga Book with a combination of web browsing (using Chrome) and document editing....

On Friday, LG announced two new premium monitors, including the UltraGear 45GR95QE. It features the same 45-inch ultrawide OLED panel with a WQHD (3,440 x 1,440) resolution as Corsair’s recently-unveiled Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 monitor, but it’s not bendable, instead opting for a fixed 800R curvature. The 45GR95QE provides 98.5 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and supports HDR10. It also has an impressive maximum refresh rate of 240Hz and variable refresh rate support (likely both FreeSync and G-Sync Compatible), making it an excellent choice for gamers....

Logitech said the gender inclusive set features a distinctive aesthetic and design language that can be personalized through custom accessories and color options, and addresses the needs and wants of women gamers. It was “conceptualized based on the feedback from women gamers across the community and brought to life by a team of predominantly women innovation, design, engineering and marketing leaders at Logitech.” The design process was guided by three principles: comfort, approachability and playfulness....

We hope you enjoyed this year as much as we’ve enjoyed bringing you the latest PC technology news and analysis. Without further ado, here’s our take on 2010. Intel’s Core i7 processors remain unchallenged in the high-end desktop segment and a six-core beast was introduced for good measure - at a rather pricey $1,140. There wasn’t much pressure from AMD on this front, but the company responded with more affordable options that pushed for interesting value propositions....

With the visuals maxed, we were surprised to see the Radeon HD 5670 hit 38fps at 1680x1050. While we don’t consider this ideal performance (which is traditionally 60fps), it suggests very low-end graphics cards should be able to play ME3 at lower resolutions – great news for budget gamers. To hit the desired 60fps, gamers need only look to the Radeon HD 6770 or the new HD 7750, while the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is even faster at 65fps....

The Exynos 8890 is a 14nm octa-core SoC, featuring four Samsung Exynos M1 CPU cores for high performance tasks, clocked up to 2.3 GHz, along with four ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked up to 1.6 GHz for power efficient processing. There’s also an ARM Mali-T880 MP12 GPU clocked up to 650 MHz, and a 64-bit dual channel LPDDR4 memory controller providing around 29 GB/s of bandwidth. Pro 6 Plus models with 128 GB of storage inside will see the full clock speeds of the Exynos 8890 unleashed....

Facebook’s earnings report shows daily users fell from 1.93 billion to 1.929 billion in the fourth quarter as the platform continues to be viewed as the ‘older person’s’ social media site in the face of companies such as TikTok. Facebook’s teen and young adult users are spending less time on the social network, and people are joining at older age: around 24 or 25. In October, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was “retooling” to “make serving young adults their north star,” with a renewed focus on TikTok-style videos....

For some reason Microsoft won’t use Steam servers, at least for the bulk of the install. Instead you download a 500 MB mini-installer from Steam which downloads effortlessly, then loads up an inferior installer which doesn’t work as smoothly and kept bugging out. Sadly we’re not alone as we’ve heard from plenty of people that have reported issues downloading the game. Not a great start. Thankfully, the installation pain was worth it as the game is incredible....

Recent reports have revealed a PC Manager app that Microsoft is quietly testing. It appears to repackage many functions already found elsewhere in Windows while adding new tools to help users free up system space. Earlier this year, the PC Manager beta app appeared on the Chinese version of the Microsoft Store. Italian PC site Aggiornamenti Lumia believes it has been submitted to other regional MS stores but isn’t yet visible, indicating a public release could be imminent....

MNT Research has announced a new product that takes the best elements of its Reform laptop and stuffs them into a smaller, lighter and more affordable package. The Pocket Reform mini laptop is more or less a throwback to the days of netbooks. It features a 7-inch, full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels, 310 PPI) display driven by a modular CPU and memory system that can be swapped out to best fit your needs....

One of the few areas where Motorola seemed to have adjusted downwards in the G4 Play is the camera, downgrading the megapixel count from 13 to 8. However in spite of this change, the G4 Play’s camera is still excellent thanks to outstanding image processing from Motorola. OEMs too often use the stock image processing in entry-level handsets, but Motorola has tweaked the software to give the G4 Play a camera that’s just as good as its predecessor....

The Moto G5 Plus is a good 42 percent faster than the Moto G5 in GPU tests thanks to its faster Adreno 506 GPU. It also holds a decent 46 percent lead on the Moto G4 Plus, another 1080p handset, while it obliterates older Snapdragon 410 SoCs. Prospective Moto G5 buyers shouldn’t despair, because the S430 is a capable SoC for 1080p displays, unlike older Snapdragon 400-series chips. The Moto G5 is more than three times as fast as Snapdragon 410 handsets in off-screen tests, while it loses to the Moto G4 by approximately six percent on average....

Displays on gaming laptops are rarely fantastic, and the GS63VR is no exception. The IPS-level (whatever that means) panel delivers good viewing angles, however brightness is limited to just 271 nits; normally I’d like to see at least 300 nits. Black levels aren’t great either, leading to a contrast ratio of just 871:1, which isn’t unusual for an entry-level IPS display but still disappointing nonetheless. Color performance from MSI laptops is generally okay, particularly as they are configured to use an sRGB mode by default....

The WindPad’s OpenGL performance impressed us as it delivered similar frame rates to the AMD 890GX chipset’s integrated Radeon HD 4290. Moreover, it was slightly faster than the GeForce 9400M when paired with the Atom 330. While its GPU performance was solid, the Z-01’s CPU score was rather low at 0.39pts. By comparison, the Atom 330 managed 0.52pts and the E-350 produced a score of 0.62pts. Although the WindPad had no problem loading powerful applications such as Adobe Photoshop CS5, graphics designers won’t be replacing their workstation with this tablet....

Microsoft is giving Xbox Game Pass subscribers seven new games to add to their library, plus the option to play Mass Effect: Legendary Edition via Xbox Cloud gaming. In addition to Madden NFL 22, Super Mega Baseball 3 and Alice: Madness Returns, other new games coming to Game Pass include the FPS Robo Quest, the upcoming Total War Warhammer game, and the 4X sci-fi strategy game Galactic Civilizations III....

On Monday, Tesla issued a safety recall for 53,822 vehicles covering all models equipped with “full-self-driving” (FSD) software. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) warned the company that changes to the software that added operational profiles to the FSD feature could cause the car to not stop at stop signs, increasing the risk of a collision. Tesla added driving profiles to its beta self-driving software back in October....

XeSS, or Xe Super Sampling, is similar in principle to DLSS and FSR. It’s a temporal upscaling algorithm that is designed to run games at a lower render resolution before upscaling them to your display’s native resolution, improving performance with the goal of just a minimal loss to quality. The keyword in the algorithm being “temporal” means that XeSS uses data from the current frame as well as past frames to reconstruct the image, which gives the algorithm more information to use at the cost of needing to be integrated into the game engine itself....

Once overclocked, both the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti seemed to operate between 1.8 and 1.9GHz. This saw the 1050 produce 9% more performance in The Division while the 1050 Ti improved by an 8% margin. This time with Rise of the Tomb Raider, the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti both gained a further 7% performance thorough overclocking. This wasn’t a great deal better than the 5% performance jump the RX 460 enjoyed when overclocked....