Described as the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone, iOS 7 has been available to the general public for roughly two weeks at this point. That’s given everyone plenty of time to get accustomed to all of the changes and vent about them, but for us, it’s served as an evaluation period. Looking beyond the flat UI and the animated background, has that much really changed in Apple’s mobile OS?...
In other words, the RTX 2060 is the fastest graphics card to ever to come with a 6GB memory buffer. The previous king of this title would have been the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, and so far the Maxwell part has aged very well. So at least up until this point 6GB VRAM hasn’t been an issue. The RTX 2060 is only ~15% faster than the 980 Ti on average, so while a lot of people are freaking out and we don’t believe the 6GB buffer is a short term issue, we wanted to run a few more tests and give a fuller perspective on the matter....
In Excel 2010, the Core i7-3770K provided similar performance to the i7-2600K. This meant that it was 9% faster than the Core i7-3820, yet 24% slower than the i7-3960X. When testing with WinRAR the Core i7-3770K was just 3% faster in our 700MB compression test and 5% faster in the 400MB compression test when compared to the i7-2600K. Again we see little difference in performance between the Core i7-3770K and i7-2600K processors....
Japan can already punish people convicted of “insultation” with a maximum of 30 days in prison or a fine under 10,000 yen (around $75). The amendment to the country’s penal code, which will go into effect this summer, will increase the potential jail time to one year and the fine to 300,000 yen (about $2,200). Additionally, the statute of limitations on prosecution has been increased from the current one year to three years....
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. Sony Vaio Z Sony’s latest Vaio ultraportable is a two-part system that comprises a very lightweight main unit and a separate attachment that will turn it into a powerful desktop replacement when docked....
In terms of design, the 27GL850 is very similar to LG’s recent offerings like the 32GK650F that ranked highly in our review earlier this year. Anything in their UltraGear line for gamers will look somewht alike. You get a flat V stand with red highlights and a simple plastic construction. Reasonable bezels, a matte-black finish on both sides – thankfully no glossy areas – and easy access to ports on the rear....
It’s also a much more substantial update to the display than last year’s refreshed 27GN850, with LG showing the clear goal of retaking the performance throne in this class of monitor. The basic fundamentals are the same: this is a 27-inch 2560x1440 display using LG Nano IPS technology. Same 98% DCI-P3 gamut coverage, same adaptive sync support with G-Sync and AMD FreeSync. But there are three major additions that make this more than just a refresh....
The portability in particular is a standout with this laptop. It’s not the smallest laptop going around, but it has reasonably slim bezels and an astonishingly light construction. The difference between this sub-1kg laptop and a typical 1.2 to 1.4 kg machine is immediately noticeable, and it’s amazing LG managed to include a 72 Wh battery inside without affecting this weight rating. However, and this is the case with almost every laptop out there, the Gram is not perfect....
The web browser that ships with Android Honeycomb is quite different from the browser we find in Android smartphones. For starters, it offers true tabbed browsing, just as you would find on Google Chrome on the desktop. The Honeycomb browser even supports Chrome’s Incognito mode (for leaving no cookies or history of your browsing sessions) and will synchronize with Chrome’s bookmarks - even supporting bookmark folders. The new features are quite nice....
The G700 is a sleek looking solid black mouse with enough buttons to make any MMORPG/FPS player smile from ear to ear. There are four programmable buttons on the left side of the device within reach of your thumb. All four buttons are tapered centrally with the top row extending out further than the bottom row. Having different sized buttons helps you select the proper one without having to look down at the mouse each time....
The new MacBook Air features a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, MagSafe charging, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera and a four-speaker audio system. The portable measures 11.3mm thin uniformly and weighs only 2.7 pounds. It’ll be offered in your choice of silver, space gray, midnight and starlight, and adopts Apple’s flat edge styling from recent iPhone and iPad models. Pricing starts at $1,199 ($1,099 for education customers) for an Air with an eight-core CPU, eight-core GPU, 8GB of unified memory and 256GB of SSD storage....
Magic Leap has announced commercial availability for its next-gen augmented reality platform. The enterprise-focused Magic Leap 2 will launch on September 30, 2022, and be available in three editions. Magic Leap 2 Base is intended for full commercial deployments and production environments. It’ll be priced at $3,299 and comes backed by a one-year limited warranty. Magic Leap 2 Developer Pro, as the name suggests, is designed to help companies develop and test their apps....
Starting in August, Meta will roll out a new account system for its VR platform, separate from Facebook and Instagram accounts. The company also plans to introduce a new profile system and privacy controls. Those who start using a Quest 2 after August must set up a Meta VR account. Existing users have until January 1, 2023, to transition. At that time, users already logged in through Facebook or Instagram can migrate to a Meta VR account, then choose whether it remains linked with the aforementioned social accounts....
Microsoft has run into another obstacle in its attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard. On Wednesday, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a formal investigation into the record-breaking $68.7 billion deal announced in January. The regulator is concerned that the acquisition might violate UK antitrust laws and create an anticompetitive market. The CMA feels vigilance is necessary considering that Microsoft is the third largest tech company and Activision Blizzard is the fifth largest gaming company....
With Windows 11, Microsoft said it would be releasing feature updates on an annual basis, which will arrive in the second half of each calendar year. Soon after the announcement, the company also shifted Windows 10’s feature update schedule from its twice-a-year cycle to the same single update cadence. It’s why we didn’t get an official 22H1 version of either operating system, though Microsoft did release a Windows 11 feature update earlier this year that arrived outside of the company’s established roadmap....
Even when considering the Lumia 640’s entry-level status, I was disappointed with the quality of the smartphone’s camera. The sensors on mid-range and high-end Lumias have historically been quite good, but on the Lumia 640 the quality of this eight-megapixel sensor is noticeably worse than the similar camera on one of this device’s main competitors, the 2014 Moto G. Outdoor performance is good without blowing me away. Images don’t have a ton of dynamic range, and colors are universally undersaturated, but metering is surprisingly accurate in both cloudy and sunny conditions....
The presentation began and it seemed like more of the same. Don’t call it a tablet – it’s the new “Surface”… boring. It’s thin, but not much more than existing tablets. It has a kickstand… umm ok. A magnetic cover – yeah, we’ve seen that somewhere before. Oh, and it doubles as a super-thin keyboard. Wait, what? That’s how the announcement went. Microsoft nailed it. The company used secrecy to build hype, a favorite tactic of Apple, and ultimately managed to surprise most onlookers....
It’s been what feels like an eternity since the last installment of Half-Life 2 and many expect the episodic trilogy to conclude this year. Although Valve hasn’t offered a concrete launch date (or much of anything else for that matter), there is some tangible proof Episode Three is in the pipeline. In December, a Valve employee was spotted in an Episode Three t-shirt. Around the same time, a voice actor claimed to have recorded lines for the game....
The Moto E isn’t a device suited to power users. It isn’t a device for people that demand the best hardware or a suite of crazy features. It is, however, a great entry-level handset that gives you all the necessities in a simple, functional package for a very attractive price. Crucially, the necessities aren’t hampered by terrible software or laggy performance, which typically haunt cheap Android smartphones. On the performance specifically, the Snapdragon 200 paired with 1 GB of RAM is capable of delivering a decent experience, often (but not always) smooth throughout apps and the operating system....
On the flip side, it’s nice to have a large storage drive on tap alongside the SSD for pictures, music, movies or whatever else you may want to have available at any given time. I conducted our standard notebook battery tests on the GX60. Our video playback test consists of looping a 720p rip of the movie Inception at full screen with max brightness and Wi-Fi disabled. This is a taxing test that resulted in 3 hours and 19 minutes of battery life....
